New anti-viral drug may help prevent measles outbreaks, researchers say

A team of researchers has developed an anti-viral drug that may one day be able to prevent measles in people who are not vaccinated, but have been exposed to the highly infectious disease.

The drug, developed by a team of scientists from Georgia State University, the Emory Institute for Drug Development and the Paul-Ehrlich Institute in Germany, is said to have reduced virus levels in infected animals who received the drug orally, the researchers said in a statement put out Wednesday.

Though a measles vaccination already exists, experts say a recent decline in compliance has led to a resurgence in outbreaks. Similar to the flu, measles is highly contagious and spreads through breathing, coughing and sneezing.

But researchers testing the drug say three days after infection, the treatment was able to suppress a lethal, “measles-like” infection in ferrets, known as the canine distemper virus. According to the researchers, all the animals treated with the drug not only survived, but developed a “robust” immunity against the virus.

The inhibitor drug, known as ERDRP-0519, targets the viral RNA polymerase, an enzyme complex unique to the measles virus, by preventing it from replicating viral proteins.

Researcher Dr. Richard Plemper said the drug could be used to treat family, friends and others who have come into contact with a person infected with the measles virus but has not yet developed symptoms.

"The emergence of strong antiviral immunity in treated animals is particularly encouraging, since it suggests that the drug may not only save an infected individual from disease but contribute to closing measles immunity gaps in a population," Plember said in a statement.

The researchers, who now want to test the drug in larger animals, say the drug is not designed to replace a measles vaccination, but could potentially eradicate the disease in areas where vaccination coverage is scarce. The drug’s benefits, they say, is that it can be taken orally, stockpiled and it is cost effective. The drug has yet to undergo human trials.

Measles remains one of the leading causes of death among young children even though a vaccine exists, according to the World Health Organization.

Insufficient vaccine coverage, a result of parents in the developed world choosing to not vaccinate their children, has led to the resurgence, the drug’s researchers said.