Prasad Ananda S, Malysa Agnes, Bepler Gerold, Fribley Andrew, Bao Bin
Department of Oncology, Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University, 4100 John R Street, Detroit, MI 48201, USA.
Antioxidants (Basel). 2022 Sep 21;11(10):1862. doi: 10.3390/antiox11101862.
The pandemic of COVID-19 was caused by a novel coronavirus termed as SARS-CoV2 and is still ongoing with high morbidity and mortality rates in the whole world. The pathogenesis of COVID-19 is highly linked with over-active immune and inflammatory responses, leading to activated cytokine storm, which contribute to ARDS with worsen outcome. Currently, there is no effective therapeutic drug for the treatment of COVID-19. Zinc is known to act as an immune modulator, which plays an important role in immune defense system. Recently, zinc has been widely considered as an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant agent. Accumulating numbers of studies have revealed that zinc plays an important role in antiviral immunity in several viral infections. Several early clinical trials clearly indicate that zinc treatment remarkably decreased the severity of the upper respiratory infection of rhinovirus in humans. Currently, zinc has been used for the therapeutic intervention of COVID-19 in many different clinical trials. Several clinical studies reveal that zinc treatment using a combination of HCQ and zinc pronouncedly reduced symptom score and the rates of hospital admission and mortality in COVID-19 patients. These data support that zinc might act as an anti-viral agent in the addition to its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties for the adjuvant therapeutic intervention of COVID-19.
新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）大流行由一种名为严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV2）的新型冠状病毒引起，目前仍在全球范围内持续，发病率和死亡率居高不下。COVID-19的发病机制与过度活跃的免疫和炎症反应高度相关，导致细胞因子风暴激活，进而引发急性呼吸窘迫综合征（ARDS），使病情恶化。目前，尚无治疗COVID-19的有效治疗药物。锌作为一种免疫调节剂，在免疫防御系统中发挥着重要作用。近年来，锌被广泛认为是一种抗炎和抗氧化剂。越来越多的研究表明，锌在多种病毒感染的抗病毒免疫中发挥着重要作用。多项早期临床试验明确表明，锌治疗可显著降低人类鼻病毒引起的上呼吸道感染的严重程度。目前，锌已在许多不同的临床试验中用于COVID-19的治疗干预。多项临床研究表明，使用羟氯喹（HCQ）和锌联合治疗可显著降低COVID-19患者的症状评分、住院率和死亡率。这些数据支持，锌除了具有抗炎和抗氧化特性外，可能还作为一种抗病毒剂用于COVID-19的辅助治疗干预。
