The possibility that the new coronavirus drug `` Mornupiravir '' causes virus mutation

A paper was published that the oral drug ` ` Mornupiravir '' used to treat the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) may be accelerating the mutation of the new coronavirus. According to this study, it has been confirmed that some derivatives born by administration of molnupiravir have the ability to infect others.

Identification of a molnupiravir-associated mutational signature in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing databases |
https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.26.23284998

COVID drug drives viral mutations — and now some want to halt its use
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00347-z

Molnupiravir is a drug that messes up the viral RNA sequence, causing errors in the viral genetic information and preventing self-replication. Mornupiravir was developed by pharmaceutical giant Merck and received regulatory approval in the US and UK in late 2021 and in Australia in early 2022. A Merck-sponsored clinical trial confirmed that administration of mornupiravir reduced hospitalizations and deaths in people at risk of severe COVID-19.

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However, a paper published in medRxiv, a non-peer-reviewed medical article repository, reported that as a result of examining the RNA sequences of more than 13 million new coronaviruses, strains with traces of mutations caused by molnupiravir were found. I'm here.

According to researchers, the prevalence of certain strains has increased significantly since 2022, when molnupiravir became widely used. It was found that this strain appears more frequently in sequence data in molnupiravir-approved countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia than in molnupiravir-approved countries such as France and Canada.

Also, looking at the data of infected people registered in samples of new coronaviruses in which specific strains were seen, it was said that there were many elderly people. Especially in Australia, it was found that many of the 25 confirmed mutant lineage patterns infected at least 20 people in their 80s and 90s, partly because molnupiravir is always available in nursing homes.

Furthermore, among the strains showing the influence of molnupiravir, some strains, including those found in Australia, were found to be infectious. ``Our study refutes the hypothesis that the virus mutated by mornupiravir never infects others,'' said Theo Sanderson, a member of the research team and a computational biologist at the Francis Crick Institute. I can say that it does,” he said.

Merck, which sells mornupiravir, said, “We are only circumstantially linking mornupiravir to highly mutated sequences. There is no evidence that the virus was extracted from patients who were prescribed mornupiravir.'