Along with this there is another way also through which the drug can work.

Chloroquine is a weak base an alkaloid. So, when it gets into a membrane-bound structures of the cell organelles (which incidentally are also attacked by the virus), the drug interferes with the acidification of the cell organelles.

The study suggests that chloroquine induces inhibition of acidity-dependent viral fusion in various cell organelles.

The cell organelles thus, including endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi bodies etc. could prevent themselves from becoming centres of viral activity inside the cell.

Favourable outcomes

The cautious optimism over the use of the drug in therapeutic use against the virus does have a scientific basis.

Other combinations of drugs have been tried to treat Covid-19 too; as in the case of a French group study published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents on 20 March this year.

The study involves the treatment of 42 patients with Covid-19, who were treated in-house. Of these, 26 were given hydroxy-chloroquine and the remaining were given the usual care.

Of the 26, six were additionally given antibiotic azithromycin.

By the end of the fifth day, all the six were cured of Covid-19.

Then, among those who took hydroxy-chloroquine alone, seven were completely cured.

In the control group for the same period, only two tested negative for the virus.

Earlier in India, doctors from the Sawai Man Singh hospital in Jaipur had reported how they had cured three patients with a cocktail of anti-viral medicines, a combination of 200mg Lopinavir and 50 mg of Ritonavir twice a day besides Oseltamivir along with chloroquine.

Chloroquine in history

Chloroquine is a synthetic drug. Its natural form is quinine, which in turn is the bark of the cinchona plant.

The indigenous shamanic medicine of Peruvians used it for a long time in curing the illness of Peruvians.

When Christendom conquered Peru, the Jesuits learned the bark powder extraction and then took the knowledge to the West.

Later, as colonialism and Christianity spread, so did malaria to the new lands they conquered.

When the local shamanic knowledge of Peru failed to cure malaria, the missionaries demonstrated the power of their medicine and hence the superiority of their God through the white pills of quinine.

Ethno-botanist Mark J Plotkin has a telling scenario in his famous book The Shamans Apprentince .

Here is an extract from the scholastic version that explains how the missionaries used malarial pills for proselytising:

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A Short Introduction To Chloroquine: The Anti-Malarial Drug Being Tested As Cure For Covid-19 - Swarajya