Researcher Claims COVID-19 Damages Hemoglobin and Hydroxychloroquine Promises Coronavirus Immunity

An Italian pharmacology scholar has claimed that COVID-19 damages the hemoglobin, thus impairing the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen throughout the body, affecting the lungs and leading to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

In an explanation of her thesis to The Jerusalem Post, Annalisa Chiusolo said that her theory provides the answers to several questions about the novel coronavirus, including the higher vulnerability demonstrated by men, particularly diabetics, to becoming seriously ill from the virus, as well as the lower rate of COVID-19 infection among pregnant women and children. Chiusolo believes that understanding this mechanism can pave the way for a quicker discovery of highly effective drugs for treating the virus.

Chiusolo who is a graduate of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Perugia, Italy, and works as a pharmacist in the country has published her theory in some of the leading Italian newspapers. According to Chiusolo, SARS-CoV-2 is dependent upon porphyrins for surviving and possibly for replicating, making it attack hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood, resulting in less oxygen available for the body. As a result of less oxygen, carbon dioxide gets accumulated.

Chiusolo has also evaluated the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat SARS-CoV-2, and has found that in addition to having an antiviral and immunomodulatory effect, the drug binds to the ferriprotoporphyrin of the ecgonine methyl ester (EME), thereby blocking the key enzyme of malaria. Ferriprotoporphyrin is the group responsible for the oxygen binding of hemoglobin. Chiusolo believes that a similar mechanism can be used against SARS-CoV-2. Her theory is supported by a study by a Chinese university demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 binds to the beta chain of hemoglobin, thereby inhibiting EME metabolism.

According to Chiusolo, hydroxychloroquine could act as a prophylactic, thus preventing or limiting the symptoms of COVID-19 while a vaccine is being formulated that specifically stimulates the body’s antibody response. Chiusolo believes that hydroxychloroquine could make the patient immune to COVID-19 and/or limit its side effects, but admitted that the drug does has some severe side-effects, especially among patients having heart disease.