As you may well know, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin are among the most frequently mentioned drugs for early treatment of COVID-19. Both drugs were originally used to combat tropical diseases like malaria (HCQ) and river blindness (ivermectin). What follows is a very brief history of how they were repurposed for treating COVID-19. In 2010, zinc ionophores were shown to inhibit replication of coronaviruses. This research was done at Dr. Ralph Baric’s Lab at UNC at Chapel Hill. Four years later, a dose-response experiment demonstrated the ability of chloroquine to serve as a zinc ionophore for cells cultured in vitro. In...
