hbv and alinia=very very good news

[stef2011]

good article about first hbv patients trying alinia over one year in mono tx and 1 patient in combo with adefovir

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670405/

mono-tx with the highest hbe and hbsag loss, no resistance, no sides.i think we should start to use it very soon in combo with antivirals since it looks the best medicine for hbv by far.
at the moment we don't have a tx with no sides and no resistance which leads to hbsag loss in a very high percentage and according to this article it is synergistic with nucs and interferon

alinia is already on the market FDA-approved treatment for Cryptosporidium

[April9903]

Hi Stefano

It's a very very good news indeed! May be in 5 years time we could all have the very ver high chance of losing HBsAG. Just the thought alone makes me very very happy. Thanks for the info.

April

[jasmbel]

what is alinia?where can we buy this?does mean theres a cure in hbv

[stef2011]

it is a medicine that was invented and sold for Cryptosporidium diarrea for babies and it has been used also on aids patients.since there are many aids patients with multiple infections with hbv-hcv they noticed alinia was also effective on hbv in these patients.
it happened that one patient with hbv and no hiv in egypt had intestinal problems and took the medicine for a long time and he lost hbsag...it is now used on hvc since 2006 becuase it helps respond better to interferon+ribavirn+alinia on hcv non responders.the only strange thing is that big pharma delayed the use on hbv from 2005 (all this happened on 2005/2006 in egypt) and also results on hbv are superior than hcv by far.alinia is also effective against other viruses other than hbv-hvc

you can buy this medicine for Cryptosporidium on normal pharmacy or onlline pharmacies around the world, there is also a generic and the medicine is not expensive but the use for hbv would be off label.
i think that this could be tried by inactive carriers who has no benefits from antiviral/interferon tx but maybe they could benefit from alinia since it is active against hbsag and hbeag.
and it is should be also good for people with resistant strains to several antivirals since it works against all hbv resistant strains, if one is resistant to a lot of antivirals i guess the use of it should be very good.

it looks like there is no danger at all with the use of it but i would wait for furthur details, there should have been another trial on 2009 in combo and i would wait for those results.
anyway i have always thought about a strange behavior since 2005 because 5 years to try a medicine already on the market with no sides and no danger, it looks like tenofovir...researchers knew it was the most active since 2000 but they are using it only now and finding it has lower resistance than any other weak antiviral used until now (lam,adefovir and so on), this is very very strange....

[stef2011]

it would be good to hear feed back from hcv foum users who already use alinia and HR, who is probably experienced on this
off label use should be safe since alinia is like interferon and resistance cannot happen and there are no sides or very mild

sides:
In general, side effects have been mild and transient in nature. The most frequent side effects have included abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and headache, and the rates of occurrence were not significantly different from placebo.

[bberry]

wow

i have an appointment early feb so i am gonna print and take this to my doc.. lets see what he says

[stef2011]

here is a link to the article published on World Journal of Gastroenterology 2009 April 21

http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/15/1805.pdf

as soon as i know if my liver damage is lower than f4 (this should be between june and october of this year) and that alinia doesn't interfere with entecavir (only adefovir was tried directly on a patient by now) i will also try this, the minimum we can get from this medicine is to stop resistant strains if any tries to develop.

this medicine has been developed between 1947-1967 for the use against gastrointestinal infections so the use is not dangerous at all (references on the end of articles)

[April9903]

I am also very interested to try this medicine instead of the herbal tea I am trying right now.
As far as I understand, this "Alinia" can start and stop any time without any danger, am I right?

[stef2011]

it shouldn't be dangerous to stop since it doesn't have any resistance but i would wait further trials especially about combos which will give high hbsab seroconvertion rates

i am also very anxious to see combo with strong antivirals like tenofovir and ftc.
adefovir is very very weak and it is a pity they tried such a weak antiviral (although it is very good to know that seroconvertion happened even with weak antiviral)

[April9903]

Here is something interesting about Alinia

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Hepatitis-C/Alinia-Nitazoxanide-Sources/show/1124364

[stef2011]

thanks for the link, it is very useful info

i found canadian pharmacy too the other day and that's the only one i would trust becuase you have an address and a phone number, so we can check if it is a real licenced pharmacy.
i wouldn't trust any other source becuase it is too dangerous to buy medicines from india/china/3d world countries online even if nitazoxanide is a very easy chemical.

i guess the best way is to buy alinia from canadian pharmacy and then check with romark if it is their product by serial numbers on medincine box.

in any case i wouldn't mix antivirals other than adefovir until we have some trials that confirms alinia works synergistically also with entecavir/tenofovir.
it would also be very good if anybody could get in touch directly with romark in tampa and see if they have more info on use for hbv, the article is from 2008 and pubblished april 2009 so i guess they have some more info by now.

[April63]

Hi Stefano. Thank you for valuable information.-April

[stef2011]

i have found other info

treatment of a patient refractory to lam in 2006
http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/2006icr/ddw/docs/061606_d.html

in july 2008 there are reports that talk about alinia+entecavir and alinia vs entecair trial, any data from this would be very very interesting and if available i would start alinia now (page 14):
http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/assets/0/16/42/196/198/bfb084dd-e770-4319-8df1-a0efbea7a08d.pdf

i have sent an email to romark and asked if entecavir and alinia work in synergism or at least if they have in vitro data to exclude interference, i do hope they can give some data already.

point of view of HR on romark company and if their data is reliabe or too optimistic like big pharma makes usually (these posts are from jan 2008 so it considers only for hcv tx):
http://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/show/2391

[stef2011]

by the way i also checked hbsag seroconvertion rates with all antivirals, adefovir in monotx as almost 0% chances of seroconvertion (natural seroconvertion is 1-2% per year), so the best combo chances with alinia are probably with 3, 2 and 1, theoretically alinia is also the best combo the prevent resistance since it works against all resistant strains and has no resistance

1 Entecavir           5,1%
2 tenofovir              6%
3 tenofovir+ftc   10,3% per year (early data on hiv coinfected patients)
4 adefovir              1,9%
5 LAM                     0%
6 seroconvertion and loss hbsag 1-2% per year naturally

[stef2011]

http://www.merlonipharma.ch/

this is a real pharmacy, i have bought medicine online and in their shop, it is in Switzerland (on italian borders) and products are 100% safe, i just emailed to check they have alinia and generics

prices are almost the same or little cheaper than other pharmacies (i compare to italian ones which are usually expensive) but you are 100% sure you are buying Alinia® (nitazoxanide) compound

[April63]

Hello,just a one note about the very first first article.
It says that a formal phase II study is being planned for 2009. It's already 2010. I've checked the clinical trials and there isn't anything right now going on in this matter. Has Romark stopped with these promising trials? Do you know,Stefano, or anybody else,anything about it?
I  live in Canada. Just out of curiosity I had called yesterday my regular pharmacy to enquire about Alinia. They don't have it in stock but could order it for me anytime. Of course I would need a prescription. I double checked if it's the original or generic. It's the original. But the pharmacist told me that there are many different kinds (dosage). What dosage do we know,is the right dosage for HBS? My husband is on Viread.I wouldn't use Alinia without the doctors approval but it's good know all the other options,for the future.:) Kind regards-April.

[stef2011]

the website is not updated and hbv trial is the same from 2006

trials are very slow because romarke is not a big pharma company (see HR post, plus i don't think they have a lot of profit on alinia).
they are now making a different tablet with slow release and higher dosage for hcv and hbv, i think they want to make the trial of this new tablet after they have tried it on hcv

the dosage until now has been 500mg twice daily (1000mg), new release tablet is about 1350mg twice daily, the new tablet is also focused on antiviral potency rather than antibacterial potency.
i don't think they produce for the whole world but give licence for other companies, for example hcv tablet will be produced by another company in japan.

i also think there might be a lot of off label treatments around the world like it happened for tenofovir, FDA approved it on 2009 but many has used it since early 2002/2004, for alinia it can be even more because it has no sides

[April63]

Thank you,Stefano.
If you hear anything else about it,please keep us posted.:)
Take care-April

[bberry]

pump

[bram44]

Nice information !!

You are doing good job on this forum, as some old timers are taking it is easy :)

[anjan8808]

Hello All
Below is my HBSAG reading i am using Sebivo right now and as per my doctor he will tell me on June whether I can stop taking sebivo or not.  
My latest(Jan-2010) HBV DNA value <3IU/ml.  SGPT 72.  

Is alinia is useful for me to make HBSAG -ve?
Thank you

(April-2010 Report)
HEPATITIS B SURFACE ANTIGEN REACTIVE NON REACTIVE
H 1375 Ref. ranges for
Electrochemiluminescence
or = 1.00 (Reactive)

[stef2011]

according to first clinical cases it takes about 1-2 years to clear on monotherapy on a high rate, combo with antiviral will give higher rates

researchers suggested use of entecavir or tenofovir which are more potent than sebvivo (telbivudine), also consider that a positive hbvdna on telbivudine for more than 6 months is very dangerous for resistance mutations.
the good part of sebvivo is that it has effect on hbsag too, what is your condition hbe pos or negative?

i cannot sugest alinia combo with telbivudine because there has been no vitro research about sinergy, if you don't see hbsag lowering in 6-12 months with hbvdna complitely und i would switch to tenofovir combo with alinia, a high hsag baseline is a good condition for hbe positive tenofovir therapy on genotypes A and D

[stef2011]

as to hbsag quantity make blood test with iu/ml unit, other tests are not accurate for quantity although i know that 200-300s/n is a low quantity usually found on inactive carriers

when hbsag reaches 10iu/ml seroconversion is very almost certain at about 90%, on hbe negative hbsag less than 500iu/ml is a very good baseline condition for seroconversion

[anjan8808]

Hi Stefano

Thank you so much.

I am HBeAg -ve before the treatment also based on the viral count(2500IU/ML and SGPT 76) doctor prescribed me Sebivo.  
So it is better to start the alinia once the HbsAg level drops to below 500 iu/ml and not with the sebivo combo.  Correct me if my understanding is wrong.

Thanks for the help.

[stef2011]

if you reached hbvdna und on sebvivo within 6 month keep this monotherapy and check hbsag quantity, if it doesn't decrease switch to another antiviral like etv or tdf

as to the combo the problem is we have no data on combo sebvivo+alinia, probably because sebvivo is not a potent antiviral so there is no need to check with this one and since this has resistant mutation concerns i would never suggest a combo with this one

the only situation for a combo with alinia would be to switch to tenofovir or entecavir.if you don't see any decrease in hbsag talk to your doctor about changing antiviral to tenofovir or entecavir.also tell your doctor that recent data from vienna congress says that hbe seroconversion is not durable with antivirals and that therapy should be continued until hbsag seroconversion, in this situation tenofovir or entecavir are better option
the only case to keep using sebvivo would be a continuous decrease of hbsag and hbvdna und