I can extract side effects.

Chapter 379 Extreme heat, new epidemic strikes

After the meeting, Wei Kang took out a can of iced Coke from the refrigerator and drank it in big gulps.

After taking a few mouthfuls of the cold liquid, I felt refreshed all over.

Even in an air-conditioned room, he has to drink a cold drink to feel comfortable.

This made him suddenly realize that summer had already arrived quietly without knowing it.

Wei Kang walked to the window, drank Coke, and looked at the scenery outside the window.

The summer sun was scorching hot, there was no one on the road, the singing of birds became weak, and even the security guard at the door hid in the shade of the trees.

He couldn't help shaking his head. The weather is probably almost 40 degrees. It's so hot that the dog doesn't even bother to move.

During this period of time, those manual laborers will be miserable. Tiredness is second, and the heat is the main reason. It is estimated that the number of people with heat stroke will reach a new peak.

Looking at the scene in front of him, Wei Kang suddenly remembered Sanqing's heat stroke blocker.

According to the plan, it should already be doing clinical work.

Such hot weather will surely save many lives.

He turned on his phone, and all kinds of news about the high temperature across the country jumped out frantically.

"Many places across the country have issued red warnings for high temperature! Hunan Province, Sichuan Province..."

"Haishi experienced a high temperature of 41 degrees this afternoon, breaking through the highest temperature recorded in meteorological records in the past 150 years."

"The roof of a museum in Chongshi was heated by high temperatures."

"The temperature in Sichuan Province soared by 40 degrees, and many pets in the homes of netizens suffered from heatstroke due to the high temperature!"

"Deadly high temperature hit South Asia, the temperature in Tianzhu soared to 50 degrees, and nearly a hundred people died!"

"The temperature in many places in Europe has continuously exceeded 40 degrees, and forest fires have also been encountered. Many people died of heat stroke and fire."

"Citizens in many places suffered from heat stroke due to the high temperature and were sent to the hospital for emergency treatment!"

Wei Kang's eyes froze, and finally there was news about heat stroke. I don't know if these patients have been rescued. If there is no special medicine from Sanqing, the result may not be optimistic.

People in a high temperature environment are prone to sweating, weakness of limbs, dizziness and headache and other symptoms. If they are not moved to a cool place and supplemented with salt water, they will soon lead to heat stroke.

After heatstroke, the symptoms worsen, the body temperature soars above 38 degrees, accompanied by dehydration, burning skin, rapid pulse and other symptoms.

At this time, if proper measures are taken, people can still recover within a few hours.

But if it continues to develop, it will become severe heat stroke, which will be life-threatening, and heat stroke is the most dangerous type of severe heat stroke.

If the body temperature of heat stroke patients exceeds 42 degrees, confusion and coma will occur. If the body temperature cannot be lowered, it will lead to rhabdomyolysis, kidney failure, liver damage and other multi-organ failure.

The condition deteriorated extremely quickly, and the mortality rate was extremely high, with a case fatality rate as high as 80%.

Once critically ill, even the ICU will not be able to save him, and he will undoubtedly die, which is more terrifying than many terminal illnesses.

In China, the victims of heat stroke have always been manual workers and poor people, so they have not been known for a long time.

The common patients of this disease are not construction workers and other heavy manual laborers, but also pregnant women, young children and the elderly. They are all vulnerable groups, so they rarely attracted attention in previous years. people's attention.

However, with global warming, all kinds of extreme weather is coming, and it is conceivable that such high temperature weather will become a summer routine in the future.

There will definitely be more and more people suffering from heat stroke and even heat stroke.

If things go on like this, heat stroke will become a new epidemic disease, and even become an important public health problem.

By then, being hot to the death will no longer be a joke.

Wei Kang quickly called up the clinical trial report of the heat stroke blocker and examined it carefully.

Drugs in the first clinical phase can be used on healthy people, mainly to check the toxicological effect, while the second clinical phase needs to be used on patients to test the drug dosage and metabolic response.

Heat stroke occurs every year, but the number of cases has always been relatively rare, and there may be only a few hundred cases nationwide. Therefore, since the beginning of summer, this drug has just completed the second clinical trial and is preparing for the third clinical trial.

The experimental results are very gratifying. The treatment success rate of this blocker is as high as 95%, close to 100%.

The reason why it did not reach 100% was because some patients were too seriously ill and had already experienced organ failure, and they were really helpless.

Generally speaking, the heat stress response can be activated through the RIPK3 pathway, thereby inducing a variety of programmed cell death, resulting in multiple organ damage and death.

This is the reason why the mortality rate of heat stroke remains high despite active cooling and organ support treatment.

It is not because the high temperature cooks the human organs, as people speculate, but because the high temperature turns on the heat stress response in the human body, which acts on the nerve center and leads to programmed cell death.

Programmed death is the normal apoptosis of cells, which is very important for the growth, development and normal activities of organisms, and excessive programmed cell death will bring about physical failure.

The specific drug can successfully block the heat stress-activated gene RIPK3 pathway, effectively inhibit programmed cell death, and thus save lives.

If the human body is regarded as a computer, heat stroke is not a hardware damage such as the motherboard and CPU caused by overheating, but a computer suicide program triggered by local high temperature.

Once the suicide program starts, it cannot be stopped, and even if the temperature drops, it cannot be withdrawn.

However, having this special drug is equivalent to mastering a secret door, which can block the suicide command of the computer in time, stop the suicide program immediately, and recover the loss as much as possible.

Wei Kang was overjoyed after reading the experiment report.

"Great, with this blocker, those workers and the elderly don't have to worry anymore, heat stroke will not bring any life-threatening."

"With such an experimental report, the efficacy of this drug is convincing enough, and it can be specially approved to deal with sudden heat stroke in this year's extreme high temperature."

"The next step is to seek the cooperation of the hospital and let the doctors know that there is such a special drug, so that patients can use it immediately if they encounter heat stroke."

Soon, Sanqing’s official website announced the successful development of a heat stroke blocker, and attached a clinical trial report.

At the same time, a message was sent to the cooperative hospitals across the country, expressing their willingness to provide free specific medicines for emergency use if a heat stroke patient is admitted to the hospital.

As soon as the news was released, many people in the medical field knew about it, and they were all shocked.

"Sanqing actually developed such a drug?"

"Is there a market for this drug? It can be used in summer every year. Will there be a hundred patients throughout the year?"

"The patients are all migrant workers and poor households. They can't afford it if it's too expensive, and I'm afraid it will be a loss to grandma's family if it's cheap."

"It can indeed cure the disease, but it is not cost-effective at all. It is better to let everyone take preventive measures."

"I can't understand. To develop such a drug, at least tens of millions have to be invested. As a result, the number of patients is so small. I'm afraid it's not clear."

"Although the case fatality rate is high, the number of deaths is small, and dozens of people die every year. It takes so much money and manpower to develop such a drug, it always feels like killing a chicken with a sledgehammer."

"There is also a market overseas, so don't underestimate it."

"There are only a few thousand people in the world who can get this disease. It is even smaller than a rare disease. Sanqing really does not take an unusual path."

The colleagues in the pharmaceutical company shook their heads.

If it were them, they would not develop new drugs for a disease that only affects a hundred people, not to mention the huge research and development costs. The manufacturing costs alone would cost them all their underpants.

After all, migrant workers are originally the bottom of the society. They spend their whole lives and earn not enough money to stay in the ICU for a few days.

Even if such a drug is on the market, it will only be sold for two months a year, and the number of patients is only a few hundred. How much money can it make?

What's the point of selling a drug at a loss if it can't make any profit for the company?
Even if Sanqing is rich and self-willed, how many years can he persist in manufacturing?

From a commercial point of view, they are not optimistic about this drug and think it is a failed drug.

But the eyes of doctors all over the country brightened when they saw the news.

Especially in some provinces and cities in the south that are plagued by intense heat, such as Sichuan Province, Hunan Province and other places, hospitals have sent requests to receive free medicines in case of emergency.

(End of this chapter)