Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is known to cause diseases of various severities. There is increasing interest to find drug combinations to treat HSV-1 by reducing drug resistance and cytotoxicity. Drug combinations offer potentially higher efficacy and lower individual drug dosage. In this paper, we report a new application of fractional factorial designs to investigate a biological system...

Given the danger of an unprecedented spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza strain H5N1 in humans, and great challenges to the development of an effective influenza vaccine, antiviral drugs will probably play a pivotal role in combating a novel pandemic strain. A critical limitation to the use of these drugs is the evolution of highly transmissible drug-resistant viral mutants. Here, w...

The current situation in the use of antiviral drugs in veterinary medicine is characterised by a novel and optimistic approach.Viruses of veterinary importance are still used as animal models in the developmentof human therapeutics, but there is growing interest in many of these viruses in the identification of antiviral molecules for use in both livestock and companion animals. The use of anti...

Influenza viruses cause mild to severe respiratory infections in humans. Due to efficient means of transmission, the viruses infect human population on a large scale. Apart from vaccines, antiviral drugs are used to control infection; neuraminidase inhibitors are thought to be the first choice of treatment, particularly for severe cases. Rapidly evolving and emerging influenza viruses with incr...

Research produces highly efficient antiviral drugs. At the same time, viruses develop sophisticated strategies to evade their actions. Resistance to antiviral therapy has become a major issue in the management of patients with chronic viral infections. The best known example is human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, and hepatitis B and C viruses exhibit s...

more potent drugs have become available. Arabinoside adenine and trifluorothymidine (TFT) are both effective and relatively nontoxic alternatives widely used in the management of herpetic disease.' Acyclovir (ACV) (9-(2-hydroxyethoxymethyl) guanine)2 and (E)-5(2-bromovinyl)-2' deoxyuridine),3 recently developed antiviral compounds with potent inhibitory activity against herpes simplex DNA polym...

BACKGROUND Extracts and essential oils of medicinal plants are increasingly of interest as novel drugs for antiherpetic agents, since the herpes simplex virus (HSV) might develop resistance to commonly used antiviral drugs. METHODS An aqueous extract of Melissa officinalis as well as phenolic extract compounds, i.e. caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid and rosmarinic acid were examined for their ant...

Marine sponges are currently one of the richest sources of pharmacologically active compounds found in the marine environment. These bioactive molecules are often secondary metabolites, whose main function is to enable and/or modulate cellular communication and defense. They are usually produced by functional enzyme clusters in sponges and/or their associated symbiotic microorganisms. Natural p...

OBJECTIVE To review the evidence regarding treatment of herpes zoster (HZ) in the short-term, focusing on the prevention of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). QUALITY OF EVIDENCE The evidence relating to treatment of HZ is derived mainly from randomized controlled trials (level I evidence). MAIN MESSAGE Antiviral drugs might have some effect on the severity of acute pain and on the duration of s...

Covering: up to April 2014. The development of drugs with broad-spectrum antiviral activities is a long pursued goal in drug discovery. It has been shown that blocking co-opted host-factors abrogates the replication of many viruses, yet the development of such host-targeting drugs has been met with scepticism mainly due to toxicity issues and poor translation to in vivo models. With the advent ...