- People in China are scrambling to get their hands on HIV medication after global health authorities suggested it could be used to treat the deadly Wuhan coronavirus.
- Medics around the world are currently holding clinical trials to test HIV medication as a potential treatment for the rapidly-spreading virus. There is no definitive cure yet.
- Infected coronavirus patients, individuals with symptoms, doctors, and online traders in China are now asking HIV patients to give away their medication, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal reported.
- The coronavirus outbreak so far has killed at least 560 people and infected more than 27,000.
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People in China are so scared of contracting the deadly Wuhan coronavirus they are begging HIV patients for their medication in a bid to find a potential cure.
There are currently nine ongoing clinical trials testing drugs for a potential treatment of the coronavirus, six of which involve medicines approved to treat HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C, Business Insider's Andrew Dunn reported.
China's National Health Commission has also said the HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir can be used to treat coronavirus patients, according to Reuters.
Health officials in the country have already been administering HIV and flu drugs, separately, to fight the coronavirus, and doctors in Thailand said they are treating severe cases with a combination of the two, Reuters reported last weekend.
HIV drugs could help treat the coronavirus because they stop viruses from reproducing inside the body.
These are no definitive cures for the deadly virus at this point. The World Health Organization's website says there is currently no specific medicine recommended to prevent or treat the coronavirus.
But this has not stopped desperate people in China - even those without the virus - from scrambling to get HIV medicine in hopes of a cure or a protection.
Hundreds of people across China have been contacting people with HIV to ask for medicine lately, Reuters reported.
One of them - a 38-year-old man in Shandong province, eastern China - was diagnosed with pneumonia-like symptoms associated with the coronavirus.
Though he was later tested negative for the coronavirus, he told Reuters he received 30 pills of Kaletra - a medicine used to treat HIV - for free from Andy Li, a HIV-positive man who "hoards" drugs for his condition.
Li said that after he heard Kaletra could be used to treat the coronavirus from the Chinese authorities, he and other HIV patients offered up 5,400 tablets on China's social media platform Weibo, according to Reuters.
"There are so many people in need of the drug, and I don't want to waste time," Li told Reuters.
It is not clear whether the 5,400 tablets were sold in exchange for money or offered for free.
Another man in Wuhan with similar symptoms, but has not yet been diagnosed, is also turning to online marketplaces to Kaletra, The Wall Street Journal reported.
After Chen Ruoping developed a fever and lung infection, but was turned away from Wuhan's hospitals and denied a coronavirus diagnostic test, his son also started searching for HIV drugs online, The Journal reported.
"I'm begging everyone," he posted on the site, according to The Journal. "I will be responsible for all the consequences."
A man identified as Gatsby Fang also told Reuters he had been selling Kaletra to people in China for $86 a bottle after importing it from India. It's not clear how much Fang's bottle of Kaletra pills hold, and how much each pill contains.
Fang's buyers include patients already infected by the coronavirus, doctors in Hubei province - where Wuhan is located, and where the virus broke out - and people who were not infected but wanted the drug "for protection," Reuters reported.
"The patients reaching out to me were those who have no place for treatment, no place where they can confirm 100% if they have or not have the virus," Fang told Reuters.
Some people in China are also using traditional Chinese medicine, sometimes in combination with Western drugs, to treat the coronavirus.
One such remedy recommended by the Chinese government is called the Peaceful Palace Bovine Pill, which is made with the gallstone of cattle, buffalo horn, jasmine, and pearl, according to The New York Times.
The coronavirus outbreak has so far killed more than 560 people and infected at least 27,000.
It has now spread to at least 25 countries. At least two deaths have been reported outside mainland China: one in Hong Kong and another in the Philippines.
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