Frediansyah Andri
Research Division for Natural Product Technology (BPTBA), Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jalan Jogja-Wonosari 31.5, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, 55861, Indonesia.
Clin Epidemiol Glob Health. 2021 Oct-Dec;12:100826. doi: 10.1016/j.cegh.2021.100826. Epub 2021 Jun 29.
There is no specific antiviral treatment available for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Among the possible natural constituents is carrageenan, a polymer derived from marine algae that possesses a variety of antiviral properties. The purpose of this review was to summarize the evidence supporting carrageenan subtypes' antiviral activity against the emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID-19.
PubMed/MEDLINE and Google Scholar searches were conducted for publications using the terms 'carrageenan', 'iota carrageenan', 'kappa carrageenan', lambda-carrageenan', 'coronavirus', 'common cold', 'rhinovirus', and 'SARS-CoV-2' search was also done in grey literature to increase our understanding. A search for the word "carrageenan" was also carried out. Most of the publications were discussed in narrative.
Carrageenan has been shown to have potent antiviral activity against both coronaviruses (coronavirus NL63, SARS-CoV-2) and non-coronaviruses such as dengue virus, herpes simplex virus, cytomegalovirus, vaccinia virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, sindbis virus, human immunodeficiency virus, influenza virus, human papillomavirus, rabies virus, junin virus, tacaribe virus, African swine fever, bovine herpes virus, suid herpes virus, and rhinovirus. No study has been conducted using carrageenan as an anti-SARS-CoV-2 agent. The majority of the research was done on influenza, a respiratory virus that causes common cold together with coronavirus. Thus, various clinical trials were conducted to determine the transferability of these data to clinical effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2. When combined with oral ivermectin, nasally administered iota-carrageenan improved outcome in COVID-19 patients. It is still being tested in clinics for single-dose administration.
Though the carrageenan exhibited potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 and was used to treat COVID-19 under emergency protocol in conjunction with oral medications such as ivermectin, there is no solid evidence from clinical trials to support its efficacy. Thus, clinical trials are required to assess its efficacy for COVID-19 treatment prior to broad application.
2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）尚无特异性抗病毒治疗方法。角叉菜胶是一种可能的天然成分，它是一种从海藻中提取的聚合物，具有多种抗病毒特性。本综述的目的是总结支持角叉菜胶亚型对新型严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）（COVID-19的病原体）具有抗病毒活性的证据。
在PubMed/MEDLINE和谷歌学术上搜索使用了“角叉菜胶”、“ι-角叉菜胶”、“κ-角叉菜胶”、“λ-角叉菜胶”、“冠状病毒”、“普通感冒”、“鼻病毒”和“SARS-CoV-2”等术语的出版物。还在灰色文献中进行了搜索，以增进我们的了解。还搜索了“角叉菜胶”这个词。大多数出版物都进行了叙述性讨论。
角叉菜胶已被证明对冠状病毒（冠状病毒NL63、SARS-CoV-2）和非冠状病毒如登革热病毒、单纯疱疹病毒、巨细胞病毒、痘苗病毒、水疱性口炎病毒、辛德毕斯病毒、人类免疫缺陷病毒、流感病毒、人乳头瘤病毒、狂犬病病毒、胡宁病毒、塔卡里贝病毒、非洲猪瘟、牛疱疹病毒、猪疱疹病毒和鼻病毒均具有强大的抗病毒活性。尚未进行使用角叉菜胶作为抗SARS-CoV-2药物的研究。大多数研究是针对流感进行的，流感是一种与冠状病毒一起引起普通感冒的呼吸道病毒。因此，进行了各种临床试验以确定这些数据对SARS-CoV-2临床疗效的可转移性。当与口服伊维菌素联合使用时，经鼻给予ι-角叉菜胶可改善COVID-19患者的预后。目前仍在临床进行单剂量给药测试。
尽管角叉菜胶对SARS-CoV-2表现出强大的抗病毒活性，并在紧急方案下与伊维菌素等口服药物联合用于治疗COVID-19，但临床试验中尚无确凿证据支持其疗效。因此，在广泛应用之前，需要进行临床试验来评估其对COVID-19治疗的疗效。
