Iron Chelating Agents: Promising Supportive Therapies in Severe Cases of COVID-19?

Abstract

Dear Editor, On December 2019, new cases of COVID-19 pneumonia were reported from Wuhan city of China that were consequences of 2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2 infection (1). Very soon this disease spread around the world and till now over than 3,000,000 person have been infected with this new virus. The most common clinical presentations of these patients were fever, dry cough, malaise, fatigue, myalgia, headache, shortness of breath, chest pain, ageusia, anosmia, gastrointestinal, cerebrovascular and dermatologic presentations (2-4). Since COVID-19 is a new disease, there isn’t any approved treatment regimen. Till now many drugs have been studied under clinical trials projects such as (hydroxyl)chloroquine, azithromycin, ribavirin, lopinavir/ritonavir, atazanavir, umofenovir, favipiravir, remdesivir, interferon alpha, tocilizumab, etc (5). Also many supportive therapies have been considered such as convalescent plasma therapy (6), high dose intravenous vitamin C therapy (7), extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), etc. (8). Severe cases of COVID-19, have accompanied tachypnea, shortness of breath, oxygen saturation levels of less than 90%, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis, septic shock and multi-organ failure (especially heart, kidney and liver damage).