They are testing losartan (a blood pressure mediccation) to see if it might help to limit the covid-19 infections. Other thoughts are that it might make it easier.

From http://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-covid-19-treatments.html:

Quote:

---

Losartan is a generic blood-pressure medication that some scientists are hoping could help patients with COVID-19. The University of Minnesota has launched two clinical trials using the inexpensive, generic drug. The first would evaluate whether losartan can prevent multi-organ failure in those hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia. The second would evaluate if the drug can prevent hospitalizations in the first place, Reuters reported.

Losartan works by blocking a receptor, or doorway into cells that the chemical called angiotensin II uses to enter the cells and raise blood pressure. SARS-CoV-2 binds to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, and it's possible, the thinking goes, that because losartan might block those receptors, it may prevent the virus from infecting cells.

Complicating things, a paper published March 11 in the journal The Lancet has raised the possibility that common drugs for hypertension, such as ACE inhibitors and so-called angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), which includes losartan, might actually spur the body to make more ACE2, thereby increasing the ability of the virus to infiltrate cells. A recent study of 355 COVID-19 patients in Italy (study in Italian) found that three-quarters of the patients who died had hypertension, and the authors propose this is one reason for their increased susceptibility.

---

I guess that I'm between a rock and a hard place.

Farmer Ag said:

---

I had to get off Losartan because it caused me to cough all the time, so it's really not an option for me anyway. The way it made me cough would have folks run the opposite direction in today's environment!

---

Was it a dry cough?

I've had a dry cough all year. It was right at the end of 2019 when they upped my dosage of Losartan. I have a Dr's appointment in June for an evaluation of whether it is working.

Yes. I believe that is a common side effect. I know my brother and sister had the same reaction which caused me to question the doctor about it.

I went to fill my prescription at the first of the month and was told that I could only get a 30 day supply in stead of 90. I was told it is made in China and hard to get right now.

aggie orbitalwelder said:

---

I went to fill my prescription at the first of the month and was told that I could only get a 30 day supply in stead of 90. I was told it is made in China and hard to get right now.

---

That is a problem with our generics. Lots are made in China/India because it just becomes a price war when the drug goes generic. We may really want to reconsider our supply chain after this, but manufacturing the drugs here will result in higher prices. Kinda goes in the face of "lower drug prices" everyone keeps pushing for.

*There are other other things we can do to improve our supply chain efficiency that could offset these price increases, but they are harder and not politically easy or they would have been done already.

Once you are far enough along the infection that you are worried about multiple organ failure, the amount of ACE receptor isn't going to matter.

It takes only takes one virus binding one receptor to infect a cell. Lowering the number of receptors lowers the kinetics of one virus bumping into a receptor. If you only have one receptor and one virus but the virus approaches from the wrong side of the cell, it isn't going to bind and infect. increasing the number of viruses increases the kinetics. Now you have viruses approaching from all sides and it only takes one to infect.

By the time you are concerned with multiple organ failure, your body is so flooded with virus that a small change in the number of receptors isn't going to significantly slow the infection down.