Abstract
To explore the benefits of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), (which is an antimalarial agent that has shown effective pharmacological properties in different malarial conditions and immunological disorders, particularity in chloroquine-sensitive malaria), in the treatment and prevention of Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic because HCQ was recently advocated to minimize the pathogenicity of COVID-19. The aim of this review is to shed the light on a possible mechanism by which HCQ can defeat the COVID-19, a disease characterized by the WHO as a pandemic. Literatures from Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar were cast-off to search the literature data. The keywords used are antimalarial agent, COVID-19, Hydroxychloroquine, SARS-CoV-2 and Zinc sulfate.The review summarizes the benefits of using HCQ against COVID-19 through exploiting the ability of this antimalarial agent in ameliorating the body immunity, inhibiting and/or delaying the viral glycosylation by increasing the pH inside the host cell and also via suppressing the viral transcription and replication through the formation of a complex structure after binding with zinc. We concluded thatthese interfering properties of HCQ support human immunity to fight against the progression of COVID-19. We hypothesize that the therapeutic efficiency of HCQ against the COVID-19 can be enhanced by the concurrent administration of zinc sulfate.
Highlights
HCQ is classified as one of therapeutic agents that are used to treat and reduce the severity of malarial conditions, in chloroquine-sensitive malaria [1]
HCQ was recommended for the treatment of COVID-19 due to its ability in minimizing the pathological reactions associated with this viral infection [2]
More than 92 clinical trials in the world during this period for different treatments single drug, combination therapy or vaccines referring to the HQC trial of 62 patients with mild infection by COVID-19 associated with pneumonia revealed that the body temperature retrieval and the cough retardation time were significantly decrease with HCQ 400mg/day (200 mg/bid) treated patients and improvement of pneumonic signs (80.6%, compared with the control patients 54.8% [26]
Summary
HCQ is classified as one of therapeutic agents that are used to treat and reduce the severity of malarial conditions, in chloroquine-sensitive malaria [1]. The drug has been incorporated in the therapeutic protocol of COVID-19 in the hospitalized patients in several countries, including Iraq In these patients, HCQ has shown approximately 50% increase in the recovery rate in response to the total active cases. We discuss the mechanism of action of HCQ that enables the drug to inhibit the COVID-19 activity against the host cells. Using this medication is associated with certain adverse reactions which are not considered in this review, and careful management is required with this therapeutic intervention especially for those of cardiopulmonary involvement
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