Control of COVID-19 using artesunate, an antimalarial first line drug: A review

A novel human virus called coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19, has become a pandemic disease. It was started last week of November 2019 in Wuhan, a city in China. It causes severe respiratory tract infections and other diseases. It is transmitted from human to human within incubation times between two to ten days. It is spread via droplets, contaminated hands, or surfaces. Recently research concluded the new SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease has a mutated gene that is found in the HIV virus. Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum are two major types of the parasite which causes malaria in human.

More than 200 countries throughout the world have become suffered from malaria, and every year a large number of people die by the cause of malaria. We observed that there was no significant effect of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19 on malaria-affected countries. As per the recommendation given by World Health Organization, Artemisinin and its derivatives like Dihydroartemisinin, Artemether, Arteether, and Artesunate are used to kill parasites at an early phase of their development, quickly decreasing their numbers. Among all derivatives, Artesunate has the activity against HIV virus, and HIV virus has some structural similarity with coronavirus SARS-Cov-2 as both are RNA-based virus. There is a possibility for using Artesunate in malaria-infected countries; the coronavirus SARS-Cov-2 is unable to show a significant impact on malaria-affected countries.

Zinc can increase the immunity against viral infections, especially on those viruses that cause infection in the respiratory tract. In our hypothesis, we suggest the use of Artesunate along with Zinc as a prophylaxis agent against coronavirus, COVID-19.