Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Editorial
. 2020 May 8;24(1):210.
doi: 10.1186/s13054-020-02932-4.

Chloroquine for COVID-19: rationale, facts, hopes

Andrea Cortegiani  1 , Mariachiara Ippolito  2 , Giulia Ingoglia  2 , Sharon Einav  3
Affiliations
Editorial

Chloroquine for COVID-19: rationale, facts, hopes

Andrea Cortegiani et al. Crit Care. .
No abstract available

Keywords: COVID-19; Chloroquine; Coronavirus; Pneumonia; SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All the authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proposed mechanisms for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine effectiveness on SARS-CoV-2 infection. The mechanisms proposed as responsible for the effects of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine: (a) the drugs interfere with the terminal glycosylation of cellular receptor ACE-2, thus hampering virus-receptor binding; (b) the drugs increase the pH of acidic cellular organelles, hindering endocytosis at intermediate stages with negative effects on virion transport and potentially altering post-translational modification of newly synthesized viral proteins; and (c) the drugs may contrast the process of virion assembly and viral protein synthesis
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Savarino A, Boelaert JR, Cassone A, Majori G, Cauda R. Effects of chloroquine on viral infections: an old drug against today’s diseases? Lancet Infect Dis. 2003;3:722–727. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(03)00806-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cortegiani A, Ingoglia G, Ippolito M, Giarratano A, Einav S. A systematic review on the efficacy and safety of chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19. J Crit Care. 2020. 10.1016/j.jcrc.2020.03.005. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shi Y, Wang Y, Shao C, Huang J, Gan J, Huang X, et al. COVID-19 infection: the perspectives on immune responses. Cell Death Differ. 2020. 10.1038/s41418-020-0530-3. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang M, Cao R, Zhang L, Yang X, Liu J, Xu M, et al. Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro. Cell Res. 2020;30:269–271. doi: 10.1038/s41422-020-0282-0. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Liu J, Can R, Xu M, Wang X, Zhang H, Hu H, et al. Hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. Cell Discov. 2020. 10.1038/s41421-020-0156-0. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources