An international team of scientists have successfully developed a novel compound which early signs suggest might prevent a range of viruses from infecting humans. Researchers from Oxford, Beijing, Leeds and Innsbruck collaborated on the new inhibitor. It targets a group of viruses responsible for hand, foot and mouth disease, especially the EV71 virus. This viral group causes numerous epidemics in children, mainly in Asia, with roughly 10 million cases reported every year in China alone. Symptoms are usually mild but in some cases the disease can prove fatal – the Chinese government reported over 900 deaths in 2010. The disease is currently untreatable and is a major global threat to public health.
This discovery, published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, may also have important implications for combating other diseases. Hand, foot and mouth disease is caused by several closely related viruses, and the new compound is effective against all of these. In addition, other wide-spread viruses are quite closely related (they belong to the same enterovirus genus), including poliovirus and many of the viruses responsible for the common cold.
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