An effective treatment for #Coronavirus #COVID-19 has been found in a common anti-malarial drug

[Elderberry]

WUWT by Anthony Watts 3/17/2020

An effective treatment for #Coronavirus #COVID-19 has been found in a common anti-malarial drug

UPDATE: A Covid-19 case correlation between malarial and non-malarial countries has been plotted by Dr. Roy Spencer, and the results are stunning – see below.

Encouraging news: three new medical studies show a commonly available anti-malaria drug known as chloroquine aka chloroquine phosphate is showing strong results against COVID-19 infections in both China and South Korea.  Excerpts from three studies, including one published in Nature are below.

An Effective Treatment for Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Presented by: James M. Todaro, MD and Gregory J. Rigano, Esq.

In consultation with Stanford University School of Medicine, UAB School of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences researchers.

SPANISH: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR1adodKPhWalV9djnerI2x_v1LGgGyhZZxpl0O5r-ZNyDdagqFq1rTCxXBqaeicfxgvypDOqKCZVyV/pub

        Translation by: Celia Martínez-Aceves (Yale B.S. Candidate 2021),  Martín Martínez (MIT B.S. 2017)

Summary

Recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that chloroquine is an effective antiviral therapeutic treatment against Coronavirus Disease 2019.  Use of chloroquine (tablets) is showing favorable outcomes in humans infected with Coronavirus including faster time to recovery and shorter hospital stay.  US CDC research shows that chloroquine also has strong potential as a prophylactic (preventative) measure against coronavirus in the lab, while we wait for a vaccine to be developed.  Chloroquine is an inexpensive, globally available drug that has been in widespread human use since 1945 against malaria, autoimmune and various other conditions. 

More: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/17/an-effective-treatment-for-coronavirus-covid-19-has-been-found-in-a-common-anti-malarial-drug/

[Elderberry]

Some COVID-19 vs. Malaria Numbers: Countries with Malaria have Virtually no Coronavirus Cases Reported

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/03/some-covid-19-vs-malaria-numbers-countries-with-malaria-have-virtually-no-coronavirus-cases-reported/

…and countries with many COVID-19 cases have little to no malaria.

This subject has been making the rounds in recent days, much more in social media and lesser-known news outlets and not so much the mainstream media…

There is now considerable evidence from several countries (China, S. Korea, France, others?) that anti-malarial drugs, especially chloroquine, is effective at greatly reducing COVID-19 symptoms, and possibly preventing infection in the first place.

I downloaded the latest COVID-19 reported cases by country from the WHO as well as the incidence of malaria cases as of 2017. I calculated the COVID-19 incidence as the number per million total population, while the malaria numbers are reported per 1,000 “population at risk”.

It took a few hours to line everything up in Excel because of differences in naming of a few countries, no malaria data for countries where malaria has been essentially eradicated, and many countries where no COVID-19 cases have been reported.

More: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/03/some-covid-19-vs-malaria-numbers-countries-with-malaria-have-virtually-no-coronavirus-cases-reported/

[libertybele]

This is the 2nd time now that I've heard this ... so ... why isn't Italy taking a chance and administering this drug?  What have they got to lose at this point -- they are seeing a hundred deaths a day!  Granted it is specifically targeedt for the COVID-19 -- but it's worth a try.

[Elderberry]

Antiviral drugs – antimalarials and anti HIV may be useful

JoNova 3/18/2020

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/03/antiviral-drugs-antimalarials-and-anti-hiv-may-be-useful/

I’ve said from the start that anti-virals were always going to be more useful to us this year than vaccines, which take so long to test and be ready for use. What we really need are anti-virals which also happen to be preapproved and tested and hopefully in mass production. Chloroquine is cheap too, though I doubt Australian stocks of the drug are very high, or that our genius rulers have arranged more. This may be a godsend in Africa where chloroquine use is already high and may reduce the spread of Covid-19 somewhat.

The UK banned export of chloroquine a few weeks ago. Clearly someone there thought it mgith be useful.

Wang et al reported on Feb 4th that Chloroquine (anti-Malarial) and Remdesivir (anti HIV) may be useful against Coronavirus. They used lab experiments on cells in glass, which had promise. But “in vitro” doesn’t always mean “in vivo”. So I’ve been waiting for some results on people. Early reports were ambiguous. Recently this was hyped as an “Australian cure” which really just meant the start of a proper trial.

There are links to papers and discussion below but I can’t beat this great description explaining how inside the cells zinc stops a major viral protein from copying the virus. Chloroquine is a zinc ionophore — it opens the ion gates and pumps zinc into the cell, just what we want if we have virus trying to take over the cellular machinery.

The South Korean results are not based on a randomized blind trial so we can’t be sure if it works. But the South Korean death rates are lower. Perhaps they are doing a better treatment than Italy. Perhaps the viral strains are different. Perhaps the population is different, older, have higher blood pressure, etc etc.

Japan is trailling HIV meds. 

New Chloroquine study in France

More: http://joannenova.com.au/2020/03/antiviral-drugs-antimalarials-and-anti-hiv-may-be-useful/

[roamer_1]

As an aside, considering its use against malaria, is chloroquine a quinine derivative, as its name would suggest?

[Elderberry]

As an aside, considering its use against malaria, is chloroquine a quinine derivative, as its name would suggest?

I would have thought that too, but no.

14.2.2.1.2 Chloroquine

The most successful drug and without comparison, chloroquine [20], was not developed using quinine as a scaffold but methylene blue---

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/chloroquine

[roamer_1]

I would have thought that too, but no.

14.2.2.1.2 Chloroquine

The most successful drug and without comparison, chloroquine [20], was not developed using quinine as a scaffold but methylene blue---

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/chloroquine

Just a curiosity - Thank you @Elderberry . I would not have known where to begin to look.