South Korea’s Hyundai Bioscience is preparing to start clinical trials of what it hopes could become the first antiviral treatment for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease that infects millions of people around the world every year.

韩国现代生物科学公司（Hyundai Bioscience）正准备开始临床试验，以期成为第一种治疗登革热的抗病毒药物。登革热是一种蚊子传播的病毒性疾病，每年感染全球数百万人。

Hyundai Bio’s drug candidate Xafty is a new formulation of niclosamide, used for decades to treat infections caused by parasitic worms and in recent years proposed as a potential therapy for viral and bacterial diseases.

现代生物的候选药物Xafty是氯硝柳胺的一种新配方，数十年来用于治疗寄生虫引起的感染，近年来被提议作为病毒和细菌疾病的潜在疗法。

Niclosamide’s development as an antiviral has been held back by its low absorption and short half-life, which Hyundai Bio claims to have solved using a proprietary, polymeric drug delivery technology.

氯硝柳胺作为一种抗病毒药物的发展受到其低吸收和短半衰期的阻碍，现代生物声称已经使用专有的聚合物药物输送技术解决了这一问题。

The company is aiming to get emergency use authorisation (EUA) for its drug – an early access pathway that came to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic – after running clinical trials in areas where dengue fever is endemic, including Mid/South America and Southeast Asia.

该公司在登革热流行地区（包括中南美洲和东南亚）进行临床试验后，目标是获得其药物的紧急使用许可（EUA）。该药物是新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行期间出现的早期进入途径。

Candidate countries in the Americas are Puerto Rico and Brazil while those in Asia include Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam.

美洲的候选国是波多黎各和巴西，而亚洲的候选国包括马来西亚、泰国、新加坡和越南。

Last year, Hyundai Bio’s US subsidiary agreed to provide Xafty to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) so scientists could run preclinical testing of the drug as a potential antiviral for use in future pandemics. It has also run a small clinical trial in COVID-19 patients suggesting it shortened the time to recovery from the infection..

去年，现代生物的美国子公司同意向美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）提供Xafty，以便科学家可以对该药物进行临床前测试，作为未来大流行的潜在抗病毒药物。它还对新型冠状病毒肺炎患者进行了一项小型临床试验，表明它缩短了从感染中恢复的时间。。

According to the biotech’s chief executive Oh Sang-gi, Xafty was shown to be effective against all four serotypes of the Dengue virus in in vitro studies and also has activity against other mosquito-borne viruses including zika and chikungunya.

据生物技术首席执行官Oh Sang gi称，在体外研究中，Xafty对登革热病毒的所有四种血清型都有效，并且对其他蚊媒病毒（包括寨卡病毒和基孔肯雅病毒）也有活性。

That could be important, as the other viruses can be hard to differentiate from dengue so treatment could be started before a definitive diagnosis. The current plan is for Xafty to be tested in a “basket” trial across dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses as early as possible after symptoms develop..

这可能很重要，因为其他病毒很难与登革热区分开来，因此可以在明确诊断之前开始治疗。目前的计划是在症状出现后尽早对Xafty进行登革热和其他蚊媒病毒的“篮子”试验。。

Dengue is endemic in more than 125 countries around the world, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) infects around 390 million people each year and results in 20,000 fatalities.

登革热在全世界125多个国家流行，据世界卫生组织（WHO）统计，每年约有3.9亿人感染登革热，导致20000人死亡。

The disease causes a range of symptoms, including high fever, headaches, joint and muscle pain, and rashes, and in severe cases can result in organ damage and death.

这种疾病会引起一系列症状，包括高烧、头痛、关节和肌肉疼痛以及皮疹，严重时会导致器官损伤和死亡。

Last month, the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) said that a dengue outbreak in Latin America focused on Argentina and Brazil had caused 3.5 million cases and more than 1,000 deaths from the start of the year to 26th March, a threefold increase on the same period of 2023.

上个月，泛美卫生组织（PAHO）表示，从年初到3月26日，以阿根廷和巴西为重点的拉丁美洲登革热疫情已造成350万例病例和1000多人死亡，比2023年同期增加了三倍。

Two preventive vaccines have been approved to date – Sanofi’s Dengvaxia and Takeda’s Qdenga – but there is still a need for a drug treatment for patients who contract the disease and develop severe symptoms.

迄今为止，已经批准了两种预防性疫苗——赛诺菲（Sanofi）的登瓦夏（Dengvaxia）和武田（Takeda）的Qdenga，但仍需要对感染该疾病并出现严重症状的患者进行药物治疗。

Dengue fever is unusual in that a first infection is rarely serious, but a second can lead to a much more serious form of the disease.

登革热是不寻常的，因为第一次感染很少严重，但第二次感染可能导致更严重的疾病。

Dengvaxia is only recommended in those who have previously had dengue fever or populations in which most people have been previously infected after studies showed it could cause more serious dengue fever in those who had not been infected with the virus before.

登革热只推荐给那些曾经感染过登革热的人或大多数人曾经感染过登革热的人群，因为研究表明，登革热可能会导致那些以前没有感染过登革热的人患上更严重的登革热。

Qdenga has been approved for use regardless of prior dengue exposure, so can be prescribed without the need for pre-vaccination testing.

无论先前是否接触登革热，Qdenga都已被批准使用，因此无需进行疫苗接种前测试即可开具处方。