Contribution of Malarial drugs in the Development of Immunity Against COVID-19

Nazia Kanwal, Amer Jamil

Abstract

Introduction: A novel and virulent coronavirus caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, named SARS-CoV2 originated from China and has spread all over the world. Within eight months, over 14.5 million people are infected with this virus. WHO declared an emergency and recommended antimalarial drugs along with others as the first-hand defense to treat COVID positive people.

Findings: The effectiveness of antimalarial drugs shows the relationship between malaria and SARS-CoV-2. To find out the existence of this link total number of SARS-CoV-2 infected people from different malarial and non-malarial countries are compared. Malarial and non-malarial countries having the same number of infected population are compared in context to the percentage of mortality and expected infection. We found a significant link between both diseases. The countries with no malaria including France, Italy, UK, and Spain exhibited 18, 14, 14, and 10 percent deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 respectively. On the contrary, malarial countries as Pakistan, India, and Iran displayed 2, 3, and 5% mortality.

Conclusion: This significant difference indicates that malaria or antimalarial drugs have contributed to produce resistance against this highly virulent virus.