A Brief Survey on Methylene Blue for the Treatment of COVID-19

Abstract

Over the past two decades, different corona virus species have caused three severe human disease outbreaks characterized by respiratory tract lesions. The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by a new coronavirus, originated in Wuhan, China, in 2019. The rapid spread of the deadly COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 is a nightmare for the entire world. The WHO reported that 14% of infected patients have severe disease and require hospitalization, 5% of infected patients have very severe conditions and require intensive care admission (mostly for ventilation) and 4% of infected patients die. The huge efforts have been done for finding the pathophysiology and treatment of critical COVID-19 disease. Many therapeutic procedures have been suggested, with little success but there is no global approved protocol for the treatment of critically ill patients that leads to a very low survival rate and prolonged treatment in ICU. This article consist survey report of doctors who treated covid- 19 patients based on use of Methylene Blue (MB) in the treatment of COVID-19. MB (3, 7-bis (dimethyl amino) phenothiazine-5- ium chloride) is a planar tricyclic heteroaromatic compound. This feature would support the potential for intercalation between base pairs in nucleic acid, which in turn could inhibit viral replication.

It also may act as a virucidal agent by hindering the interaction between SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and its cognate receptor ACE2, by interfering with the phagosome maturation, by preventing viral translation and replication upon interaction with RNA, and by promoting H2O2 generation and oxidative virus destruction. These features, together with its potential to prevent virus-induced metabolic reorientation, reinforce the probability of success combating the infection. This survey report of Indore city says that methylene blue can be used very effectively on all types of patients at any stage of the disease severity with no side effects.