ArticleInternational journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases2020
Antimalarial artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT) and COVID-19 in Africa: In vitro inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 replication by mefloquine-artesunate.
Article in International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- Characteristics of published/registered clinical trials on COVID-19 treatment: A systematic review.Daru : journal of Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences · 2021Pooled it
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- Bacteriostatic Activity and Resistance Mechanism ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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- Antimalarial compounds exhibit variant- and cell-type-specific activity against SARS-CoV-2 isolated in Panama.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- The Antiviral and Antimalarial Prodrug Artemisinin from theCurrent issues in molecular biology · 2024Review
- Article
- Dihydroartemisinin-Ursodeoxycholic Bile Acid Hybrids in the Fight against SARS-CoV-2.ACS omega · 2023Article
- Five DifferentInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- An overview on medicinal plants used for combating coronavirus: Current potentials and challenges.Journal of agriculture and food research · 2023Article
- Artemisinin as a therapeuticNatural product reports · 2023Review
- SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants are susceptible in vitro to Artemisia annua hot water extracts.Journal of ethnopharmacology · 2023Article
- SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants succumbbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2022Article
- Antiparasitic Drugs against SARS-CoV-2: A Comprehensive Literature Survey.Microorganisms · 2022Review
- Review
- Synthesis and in vitro Study of Artemisinin/Synthetic Peroxide-Based Hybrid Compounds against SARS-CoV-2 and Cancer.ChemMedChem · 2022Article
- Antiviral Activity of Repurposing Ivermectin against a Panel of 30 Clinical SARS-CoV-2 Strains Belonging to 14 Variants.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Network pharmacology-based predictions of active components and pharmacological mechanisms of Artemisia annua L. for the treatment of the novel Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19).BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesAt the end of November 2019, a novel coronavirus responsible for respiratory tract infections (COVID-19) emerged in China. Despite drastic containment measures, this virus, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), spread in Asia and Europe. The pandemic is ongoing with a particular hotspot in Southern Europe and America; many studies predicted a similar epidemic in Africa, as is currently seen in Europe and the United States of America. However, reported data have not confirmed these predictions. One of the hypotheses that could explain the later emergence and spread of COVID-19 pandemic in African countries is the use of antimalarial drugs to treat malaria, and specifically, artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT).
methodsThe antiviral activity of fixed concentrations of ACT at concentrations consistent with those observed in human plasma when ACT is administered at oral doses for uncomplicated malaria treatment was evaluatedin vitro against a clinically isolated SARS-CoV-2 strain (IHUMI-3) in Vero E6 cells.
resultsMefloquine-artesunate exerted the highest antiviral activity with % inhibition of 72.1 ± 18.3 % at expected maximum blood concentration (C
conclusionsAntimalarial drugs for which concentration data in the lungs are available are concentrated from 10 to 160 fold more in the lungs than in blood. Thesein vitro results reinforce the hypothesis that antimalarial drugs could be effective as an anti-COVID-19 treatment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.