Journal of Pharmaceutics & Pharmacology
Case Report
Adamantanes for the Prevention of COVID-19: A Review of Case Reports
Cortes Borra A*
Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Spain
*Address for Correspondence:
Cortes Borra A, Nursing Supervisor, Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona, Spain;
E-Mail: alcortes@vhebron.net
Submission: 21 August 2020;
Accepted: 23 September 2020;
Published: 29 September 2020
Copyright: © 2020 Cortes Borra A. This is an open access article
distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Clinical evidence is reviewed for the possible use of the adamantanes
amantadine and memantine, for the prevention and/or treatment of
COVID-19. Literature searches revealed three series of case reports
authored by independent teams of international investigators. Subjects
were comprised principally of patients receiving amantadine or
memantine for several weeks as part of their treatment regimen for
Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis or Cognitive impairment prior
to their infection by SARS-CoV-2. All patients tested positive for SARSCoV-
2 confirmed by RT-PCR of nasopharyngeal swabs. Interestingly,
the majority of cases manifested age-related vulnerabilities to
COVID-19 as well as the presence of co-morbidities resulting from
either severe neurological disorders or type-2 diabetes. Amantadine
appeared to prevent the appearance of typical COVID-19- related
clinical manifestations of infectious disease in 23/24 cases. In addition,
one patient with type-2 diabetes treated with amantadine for 14
days showed clear improvements in clinical status and in oxygen
saturation levels; by day 6 he could breathe without the need for
oxygen supplementation and was discharged from hospital on day 14.
It is necessary to now confirm these findings by randomized controlled
trials in order to objectively evaluate the use of these agents for the
prevention and/or treatment of COVID-19.