COVID-19 and antimalarials. Have we been doing it wrong all along?

Eur J Pharmacol

Research Center for Functional Genomics, Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, The "Iuliu Hatieganu" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; The Functional Genomics Department - The Oncology Institute "Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuta", Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Published: January 2021

In the context of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, associations of drugs which interfere with specific steps of the viral infectious cycle are currently being exploited as therapeutic strategies since a specific treatment by vaccination is still unavailable. A widespread association of repurposed agents is the combination of the antimalarial drug Hydroxychloroquine and the macrolide antibiotic Azithromycin in the setting of clinical trials. But a closer analysis of their mechanism of action suggests that their concomitant administration may be impractical, and this is supported by experimental data with other agents of the same classes. However a sequential administration of the lysosomotropic antimalarial with the addition of the macrolide proton pump inhibitor after the first has reached a certain threshold could better exploit their antiviral potential.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7604012PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2020.173694DOI Listing

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