The Use of 4-Aminoquinolines as Treatment for COVID-19 Infection in PCR-Positive Tested Patients: A Preliminary Study
*Corresponding Author: Bisi Bright, LiveWell Initiative LWI, Alake Onile-Ere Cres, Lagos, Nigeria, Email: bisibright@livewellng.org
Copyright: © 2021 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The advent of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) respectively, eventually ushered in the impactful SARS-COV2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which was first described in December 2019 and therefore procured the name COVID-19. Just before it was declared a pandemic by the WHO in March 2020, Nigeria experienced its first case of COVID-19 on February 27th 2020. However, at the announcement of COVID-19 in December 2019, LiveWell Initiative LWI along with its Research Collaborators, put on its Thinking Cap and designed Study Protocols for COVID-19 Response in Africa. From Mid-March to Mid-April 2020, the organization shared out the study protocols to physicians, virologists, pharmacists and other specialists in the clinical sciences; thus a Hypothesis Testing went on for a month, during which time some physicians has started trying out some of the protocols on themselves and their clients, as a means of repurposing the 4-Aminoquinolines for use in COVID-19. The Oyo State COVID-19 Isolation Centre eventually decided to embrace the Study Protocols and use them as their Standard Treatment Schedule for COVID-19. Kunle-Ara Pharmacy also used the 4-Aminoquinolines for healthcare worker prophylaxis. In collaboration with LWI, the Oyo State Isolation Centre, ably led by Prof Temitope Alonge, and the Kunle Ara Pharmacy collaborated with the LWI-Chrisland University Alliance and Professional Clinical Researchers in the United States (Prof Dotun Sobande and Dr Bola Olatunji), to run a preliminary study using real-time subjects and real-time scientific inclusion and exclusion criteria while awaiting further research bordering on a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial by NAFDAC. The study was a random Physician – Patient Trials at the discretion of Prescribing Clinicians and Clinical Researchers. The results were astounding, with 100% positive outcomes stratified against placebo. However, further research is needed to further establish the role of 4-Aminoquinolines in late COVID-19 or acute exacerbations of pre-existing conditions in high risk patients (HRP) who have been successfully managed with the regimen.
