We would be happy if the community here could put an input or have a look on the possibility of our proposal. Since Covid 19 is far from ending and the search of new vaccine seems not promising at the moment with coming winters that might promote the second wave.
Several drugs had been tested and some look promising and some failed at the clinical trials. The most talked about drug is the Chloroquine, which is an analog of Quinine (synthesized from Cincona Plant). However, Plasmodium that causes Malaria had already resistant to it and currently artemesia annua has been used as anti-Malaria in some parts of the world even though Plasmodium has already resistant to it in the South East Asia. Artemesia annua had been used in the tonic remedy for covid 19 endorsed by the Madagascan' President, which is studied by Max Planck Institute and they confirmed its efficacy against Covid 19. Ref:https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20200624-artemisia-shows-promise-against-covid-19-in-lab-tests-say-researchers
We propose the use of Carica Papaya leaf as a potential treatment against Covid 19 because it is found that it inhibits Chloroquine's resistant Plasmodium. Ref:
Antimalarial activity of Carica papaya (Family: Caricaceae) leaf extract against Plasmodium falciparum Article Antimalarial activity of Carica papaya (Family: Caricaceae) ...
Other than that we had gathered information and data that Carica Papaya Leaf Extract could counter most of the Covid 19 symptoms. It reduce the interleukin IL-6 and tnf-alpha in the human and animal studies, interleukin IL-6 and tnf-alpha cause the inflammation of the lungs leading to pneumonia. It increases the platelet counts, white blood cells, TH1 T cells, It is capable of dissolving blood clot through its cysteine protease, increasing hemoglobin, reducing inflammation, providing anti-oxidant like vitamin C and A which are essential in fighting respiratory tract infection and many more.
Our studies is presented in our preprints, we appreciate the feedback and hope some could look into it, it might sound ludicrous but most of current possibility could be more less in the same manners. Chloroquine is for Malaria, Remdesivir is for Ebola, Kaletra is for the HIV, Acmetra&Kevzara are for Rheumatoid Arthritis, Xanax is for depression, etc but had been tested in finding the cure for Covid 19. The preprints can be read here Preprint Papaya leaves extract; a possible weapon against COVID-19?
We hope to gather as much info and feedback that might help us to save the humankind if it works.
𝐀 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐲𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃-𝟏𝟗 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐚 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭
𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐤𝐨𝐫 𝐌.𝐘. 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐤𝐨𝐫 𝐌.𝐒.
In 2005, a Japanese pharmaceutical company filed a patent entitled “Compositions for cancer prevention, treatment, or amelioration comprising papaya extract”. The patent claims that the papaya leaves extract can be used with few side effects for the treatment or prevention of many kinds of cancer such as stomach, lung, colon, pancreatic, leukaemia or other kinds of blood cancers (Morimoto and Dang 2006). In 2009, a patent was filed by a French pharmaceutical company entitled “TNF-alpha inhibitor”. The gist of this patent is the use of papaya leaves extract as an anti-inflammatory agent through inhibiting the secretion of the cytokine tumour necrosis factor-alpha or TNFa (Binachon 2012). What is remarkable about these patents is that the papaya tree does not easily grow in these countries, but its remarkable properties have reached far and wide. The papaya tree originates from Southern America and is now widely grown in all tropical countries. It has numerous uses in fighting many illnesses. It is interesting to note that the patent holders above are relatively well-known pharmaceutical companies till this day and had spent tens of thousands of dollars to secure the patents in numerous countries. Another patent from India covers the usage of papaya leaves extract (PLE) to increase the blood platelet counts often seen in diseases including dengue infection (Alva and Thapar 2010). This patent is notable as numerous works are available in the literature on the usage of PLE to fight dengue infection (Ahmad et al. 2011; Subenthiran et al. 2013; Sarala and Paknikar 2014; Kumar et al.2015; Ansari 2016; Sathyapalan et al. 2020).
The above patents and literature reveal a common theme for the ability of PLE in combating diseases. This common theme is the ability of PLE to inhibit or reduce the secretion of inflammatory cytokines such as TNFa and IL-6. Cytokines, such as IL-8 (interleukin-8), IL-6 (interleukin-6) and TNF-α, which are involved in the pathogenesis of afflictions such as leukaemia (Kuo 2019), the clinical severity of dengue infection (Masood et al. 2018) and viral infections including the dreaded COVID-19 (Ragab et al. 2020; Robinson et al. 2020). Cytokine storm is one of the most important mechanisms that lead to deaths of dengue (Srikiatkhachorn et al.2017) and COVID-19-infected patients (Chen et al. 2020). During a cytokine storm, a massive overproduction of a host of mediators such as interleukins, interferons, tumour necrosis factor (TNF), macrophages occurs. These mediators are lumped together as cytokines or chemokines, and an example of the effect is the lungs of virus-infected patients become heavily inflamed followed by the death of infected cells by apoptosis and necrosis. This results in significant tissue loss and haemorrhages that cause multiple organ failure (Tetro 2020; Chen et al.2020; Yao et al. 2020).
To date, the global pandemic of COVID-19 has infected more than 40 million people and caused the deaths of more than one million people worldwide (Aisami and Shukor 2020; Aisami et al. 2020; Shukor et al. 2020; Uba et al. 2020; Yahuza et al. 2020). The current expedited race for vaccine production will be beset by issues such as safety and efficacy (Khuroo et al. 2020). The current therapeutic strategy involves blocking the production of IL-6 and TNF-a, with several pharmaceutical companies running clinical trials on blocking the Interleukin IL-6 receptors (Sanofi, Regeneron and Roche) and Eusa Pharma with siltuximab that binds to interleukin IL-6. The results of these trials show limited success (Anon 2020). The most current suggestion based on accumulated pieces of evidence has suggested that the focus should be on the use of anti-TNF therapy (Feldmann et al. 2020; Robinson et al. 2020). To complement current and future pharmaceutics-based approach, there has been an increasing call to mobilize the use of antioxidants, functional foods and herbal-based antivirals to combat COVID-19 (Rastmanesh et al. 2020). Here the role of papaya leaves extracts as a TNF-a inhibitor mentioned above coupled with its historical safety comes of great value. A similar clinical study of the use of papaya leaves extract in dengue treatment (Sathyapalan et al. 2020) can be a starting point.
𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬
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