"At this critical moment, we can take special measures to help patients if there are no other treatment methods," Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said, answering a question regarding the use of anti-HIV drugs to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus in an interview with CCTV on Wednesday.

"It does not violate medical ethics," he said.

Wuhan's Jinyintan Hospital, where the first 41 known patients were treated, has launched a controlled trial of the anti-HIV drug combination, according to a report by a group of Chinese scientists in the medical journal Lancet. The research paper notes the combination can help cut up proteins when virus make new copies of themselves.

Anti-HIV drugs have also been used to treat the patients of the new virus in Beijing, the city's municipal health commission confirmed in a statement on its website last Sunday.

Wang Guangfa, director of the respiratory department of Peking University First Hospital, who got infected with the new coronavirus when treating patients told Chinanews that the anti-HIV drug has proved effective on him.

"But I don't know if this can work on other patients," Wang added. "Generally speaking, many patients need more than one to two weeks to get their symptoms controlled. But it only took me one day to get my temperature down."

After temperature goes back to normal, he still needed to undergo a virus kit testing twice. Both results were negative, so it was safe for him to leave the hospital.

What's more, Lu Hongzhou, professor of Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center told the Economic Observer the anti-HIV drug, the combination of Lopinavir/ritonavir has shown signs of relief on some of his patients. "But this is just a preliminary conclusion, and we need to make more observations."

By January 30, a total of 101 cases had been confirmed in Shanghai, most of which were admitted to  this center.

Zeng claimed that using anti-HIV drugs was unconventional. 

"The clinical trial and instructions of anti-HIV drugs are specifically for treating HIV," he said, adding that anti-HIV drugs should be used under preconditions. 

"It has to be proved by ethics and approved by the authorities," Zeng said. "Doctors must get patients' permission after informing them of the risks, and make a scientific evaluation in a timely manner after the treatment."

When asked how long will it take to develop the vaccine against the new coronavirus, Zeng said it's hard to predict. The H1N1 flu vaccine only took scientists three months to develop, but in the case of the HIV vaccine, 40 years have passed and it's still to come out.

Lots of experiments and tests need to be done before a vaccine can enter the clinical stage. 

(Top image via CCTV)