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Antimalarial drug mefloquine promising in the battle against COVID-19, finds study

Written By : Hina Zahid |Medically Reviewed By : Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli Published On 3 July 2021 3:30 AM  |  Updated On 3 July 2021 5:03 AM
Antimalarial drug mefloquine promising in the battle against COVID-19, finds study
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The study must be succeeded by trials, but there is a hope that mefloquine can become a drug used to effectively treat patients with COVID-19

Japan: Researchers from Japan in a breakthrough study have identified mefloquine, an antimalarial drug (a derivative of hydrochloroquine), which is effective against the SARS-CoV-2 -- the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings of the study are published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

Early 2020 saw the world break into what has been described as a "war-like situation": a pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the likes of which majority of the living generations across most of the planet have not ever seen. This pandemic has downed economies and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. At the dawn of 2021, vaccines have been deployed, but before populations can be sufficiently vaccinated, effective treatments remain the need of the hour.

Thus, other than fast-tracking research into novel drugs, scientists have also been exploring the arsenals of existing medicines in a bid to find anything that could work against COVID-19. Some approved drugs, like hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and interferon, have already been put to clinical use against SARS-CoV-2 without well establishing their clinical efficacies, due to the severity of the pandemic. Subsequent randomized trials have not been able to yield a consensus on the efficacy of these drugs. Only remdesivir has been approved for clinical use against severe COVID-19, although its efficacy is still being debated.

In a breakthrough study, a team of scientists--comprising Dr. Koichi Watashi, Kaho Shionoya, Masako Yamasaki, Dr. Hirofumi Ohashi, Dr. Shin Aoki, Dr. Kouji Kuramochi, and Dr. Tomohiro Tanaka from Tokyo University of Science (along with scientists from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Kyushu University, The University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, and Science Groove Inc.)--have identified an anti-malarial drug, mefloquine (which is incidentally a derivative of hydrochloroquine), that is effective against SARS-CoV-2. Their findings are published in Frontiers in Microbiology.

Detailing their modus operandi, lead scientist in the team Dr. Watashi says, "To identify drugs with higher antiviral potency than existing antivirals, we first screened approved anti-parasitic/anti-protozoal drugs. We found that mefloquine had the highest anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity among the tested compounds. Upon testing it against other quinoline derivatives, such as hydrochloroquine, in a cell line mimicking the cell-based environments of human lung cells, we found it to be better."

The team further explored mefloquine's mechanism of action. Dr. Watashi explains the process, "In our cell assays, mefloquine readily reduced the viral RNA levels when applied at the viral entry phase but showed no activity during virus-cell attachment. This shows that mefloquine is effective on SARS-COV-2 entry into cells after attachment on cell surface."

Thus, to bolster mefloquine's anti-viral activity, the scientists looked into the possibility of combining it with a drug that inhibits the replication step of SARS-CoV-2: Nelfinavir. Interestingly, they observed that the two drugs acted in "synergy" and the drug combination showed greater anti-viral activity than either showed alone, without being toxic to the cells in the cell lines themselves.

The scientists also mathematically modelled the effectiveness of mefloquine to predict its potential real-world impact if applied to treat COVID-19. What they predicted was that mefloquine could reduce the overall viral load in affected patients to under 7% and shorten the 'time-till-virus-elimination' by 6.1 days.

This study must of course be succeeded by clinical trials, but the world can hope that mefloquine becomes a drug used to effectively treat patients with COVID-19.

Reference:

The study titled, "Mefloquine, a Potent Anti-severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Related Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Drug as an Entry Inhibitor in vitro," is published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

DOI: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2021.651403/full

mefloquinecovid 19hydroxychloroquineFrontiers in Microbiology
Source : Frontiers in Microbiology
Hina Zahid
Hina Zahid

    Hina Zahid Joined Medical Dialogue in 2017 with a passion to work as a Reporter. She coordinates with various national and international journals and association and covers all the stories related to Medical guidelines, Medical Journals, rare medical surgeries as well as all the updates in the medical field. Email: editorial@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751

    Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli
    Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli

    Dr Kamal Kant Kohli-MBBS, DTCD- a chest specialist with more than 30 years of practice and a flair for writing clinical articles, Dr Kamal Kant Kohli joined Medical Dialogues as a Chief Editor of Medical News. Besides writing articles, as an editor, he proofreads and verifies all the medical content published on Medical Dialogues including those coming from journals, studies,medical conferences,guidelines etc. Email: drkohli@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751

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