And I don't know wtf this means https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173 something about an ancient virus.
Okay, I've read the first 2.5 pages. You can forget everything they claim it's all bullshit. These guys have no clue what they are doing.
They basically did this:
1. Chloroquine is an anti-malaria drug and might help with covid-19
2. Malaria parasite is inside the red blood cells
3. Thus covid-19 must have a similar mechanism
4. sars cov 2 has some unknown proteins in its RNA. They made some models of how those might look and the just made some assumptions to where those proteins might fit and apparently they thought it could fit
Here is why the study is crap:
"The lung cells have extremely intense poisoning and inflammatory due to the inability to exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen frequently, which eventually results in ground-glass-like lung image"They obviously don't know what they are talking about and are just making wild assumptions. They have no evidence for what they write here and don't explain why it would only affect the lungs but not all other organs that are more sensitive to low oxygen.
"This report demonstrates that the hemoglobin and neutrophil counts of most patients have decreased, and the index values of serum ferritin, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, albumin, and lactate dehydrogenase of many patients increase significantly. This trace implies that the patient's hemoglobin is decreasing, and the heme is increasing, and the body will accumulate too many harmful iron ions, which will cause inflammation in the body and increase
C-reactive protein and albumin."This shows one more time that they don't understand basic physiology. Ferritin is a acute phase protein and a well known parameter for inflammation of all kinds and is often measured to determine if/how much inflammation there is. It has nothing to do with 'hemoglobin is decreasing, heme is increasing,... the body will accumulate too many harmufl iron ions which will cause inflammation'. Elevated serum ferritin is a very normal reaction from the body.
"cloroquine phosphate has a definite effect on the novel coronavirus pneumonia"That's also crap. It is currently under investigation if and how much chloroquin helps. They cite a source for this claim that states "Our findings reveal that remdesivir and chloroquine are highly effective in the control of 2019-nCoV infection
in vitro. Since these compounds have been used in human patients with a safety track record and shown to be effective against various ailments, we suggest that
they should be assessed in human patients suffering from the novel coronavirus disease.". In vitro means it was tested only in the lab and they clearly say testing in humans is needed. So the guys form this study use sources that contradict what they are saying.
-I doubt the virus can enter red blood cells. As far as I know the virus mostly enters epithelial cells using ace2 as the binding receptor (plus it infects other tissue like the heart or intestines because they also express ace2)
-Chloroquine's antiviral properties are assumed to be completely different than why it works against malaria. Wikipedia has a short paragraph about it:
Chloroquine has antiviral effects.[34] It increases late endosomal and lysosomal pH, resulting in impaired release of the virus from the endosome or lysosome – release of the virus requires a low pH. The virus is therefore unable to release its genetic material into the cell and replicate.[35][36]
Chloroquine also seems to act as a zinc ionophore, that allows extracellular zinc to enter the cell and inhibit viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.[37][38]-They have many typos
-It's apparently a chinese study. I have heard many times that chinese research often ist crap because they just want as many PhD and master degrees as possible to look good.