A 6-month-old boy prescribed antiviral drugs to treat the coronavirus developed a strange reaction, with his dark brown eyes turning bright blue within 18 hours of treatment.
Unnamed baby from Thailand They were given favipiravir, a drug commonly used to treat influenza and Ebola, which has been approved to treat the coronavirus in parts of Asia but not yet in the United States.
Doctors in Bangkok who treated the infant said an antiviral drug had been released. Fluorescent chemicals build up on a boy’s cornea.
The boy’s eye color changed immediately after receiving the treatment, but returned to its natural color five days after stopping the medication.
Favipiravir is the main antiviral drug given to children infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Thailand.
The most common side effects of this treatment include increased uric acid in the body, diarrhea, and decreased white blood cell count, accounting for approximately 20% of adverse events.
Favipiravir has been approved in Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and received emergency use authorization in Italy in 2020.
The United States began trials of the drug in April 2020 with a small group of 50 people at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet approved favipiravir in the United States.
The infant report was published in April 2023, but the exact date the side effects occurred is unknown.
On the first day he received 82 milligrams, and 18 hours later his mother noticed a change in eye color.
No bluish discoloration was observed in other areas such as the skin, nails, and oral and nasal mucosa. “Symptoms improved after 3 days of favipiravir treatment,” the researchers wrote in the paper. Research published in journals Frontiers of Pediatrics.
After the treatment was completed, an ophthalmological examination was performed.
“Patients were able to track the light in all directions,” the study says.
The researchers wrote that this fluorescence “could be due to the drug, its metabolites, or additional tablet ingredients such as titanium dioxide or yellow ferric oxide.”
Several drugs can affect the eyes, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, blood thinners, and antihistamines.
A class of drugs called prostaglandins used to treat glaucoma have the side effect of darkening the iris, which can be permanent.
Doctors also found that the cornea was clear with no bluish corneal tint, and no blue pigment deposits were observed on the surface of the iris or anterior lens capsule.
Although the boy is the youngest patient to undergo treatment, he is not the first to experience strange side effects.
a 2021 Research Report in the case of A 20-year-old Indian man endured a precise change in eye color.
He was given Favipiravir and noticed discoloration of his eyes on the second day. When he stopped treatment, he had the same deep blue color but returned to his natural brown color.
“We thought the corneal blueness might be related to favipiravir and advised the patient to immediately discontinue favipiravir. Notably, the next day, when we discontinued favipiravir, “The patient’s cornea returned to its normal color,” said a paper published by a team at India’s Medicine Healthway Hospital.
Following this case, the research team scoured the literature for other cases and determined that this was the first case in which favipiravir caused a bluish discoloration of the cornea.