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The brown centre of a 6 - month - old boy turned a mysterious indigo profane after he was given the antiviral favipiravir to do by COVID-19 .
This case is unusual , but it ’s not the first time doctors have reported a patient ’s eyes changing color after they prescribed favipiravir for COVID-19 . So what could be causing this off-the-wall effect ?
The boy’s normally dark brown eyes (left) turned blue (right) when he was treated with a specific antiviral drug.
First , a bit about favipiravir : The antiviral isused to toss off a diversity of computer virus , including flu virus and Ebola virus , by stopping the germs from replicating their inherited material . It specifically works on viruses that useRNA , a molecular cousin of DNA , as their genetical material ; as viruses make copies of their RNA , the druginserts itself into the still - growing RNA moleculesand causes mutations .
In early 2020 , the drug was approved inChinato treat COVID-19 , as SARS - CoV-2 , the coronavirus behind the disease , is RNA - based . Since then , several other country — including India , Japan and Thailand — have authorized use of the drug to process mild to severe COVID-19 . In Thailand , favipiravir is the main antiviral given to children infected with SARS - CoV-2 .
Related:‘Face blindness ' could be rare long - COVID symptom , case report tip
vernacular side outcome of favipiravir include looseness , a drop in circulate clean blood cellular phone and elevated levels of a chemical substance call uric acid in the rake that , if left untreated , can cause nausea and irritating kidney stones to form . But what about the composition of unwritten blue eyes ?
The strange core wasfirst reported in December 2021 , when the cornea of a 20 - class - honest-to-god man with brown optic turned blue for a twenty-four hour period after he took favipiravir . ( The cornea is the transparent tissue paper that cover the front of the center . It lays over the sword lily , the circle of color that surrounds the pupil . )
But in the summertime prior to that report , another group of doctors reported get aman come to their infirmary with a ultraviolet lightto show that the open of his eyes glowed fluorescent fixture after he adopt favipiravir . Anda 2022 casing reportdescribed flecks of fluorescence that appeared in the whites of three masses ’s optic , as well as in their nail and some tooth , after they take the drug .
Most late , doctors report the queer showcase of center discoloration in a 6 - calendar month - old male child . According to a report published in April in the journalFrontiers in Pediatrics , the male child was taken to a hospital in Thailand after he developed a feverishness and cough . After testing positive for COVID-19 , he was founder favipiravir tablets and also a sirup containing the drug .
Just 18 hours after the infant make the drug , his mother noticed that his eyes , usually dark brown , shone blue in the sunlight . Upon examining the nestling , Dr. discovered a buildup of blue pigment in both corneas .
The male child received favipiravir for three days , after which his COVID-19 symptom ameliorate . His doctor then halted the intervention due to the strange color change in the infant ’s eyes . Five years after the intervention was halt , the boy ’s eye returned to their common color .
" unremarkably the color of the heart is determined by the iris not the cornea and is decide by the amount of paint that is present in the iris from birth,“Dr . Vik Sharma , an eye surgeon at the LondonOC clinic in the U.K. who was not demand in the boy ’s suit , told Live Science in an e-mail .
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Instead , the blue chromaticity triggered by favipiravir may result from how the body processes the drug : when the drug is broken down , it may release fluorescent chemicals that then somehow roll up in the cornea , Sharma said . In support of this thought , researchers antecedently found that the antiviral can also causefluorescence in human hairsbreadth and nails .
In the fresh report , the male child ’s doctors write that this fluorescence " may be due to the drug , its metabolite , or additional pad component part such as titanium dioxide and yellow ferrous oxide . " Favipiravir tablet have been found to be fluorescent under ultraviolet illumination light in the research lab , they remark , so it may be that the drug ’s fluorescent fixture portion end up accumulating in different tissue .
When an oculus doctor examine the boy ’s eyes two weeks after he recovered from COVID-19 , there were no sign of problems with his vision . However , it remains indecipherable whether there might be any longer - term effects of the temporary change in his eye color , the Dr. wrote in the study .
" More work is needed to determine the accurate causal agency [ of the centre discoloration ] and any long - term effects , " Sharma enjoin .
Factors such as mass ’s age , discourse duration and drug dose may mold their odds of develop the rare side gist and how long it take for the eye stain to disappear , the theme authors write . But again , because this strange result has only been reported a few times , it ’s unclear exactly why or how favipiravir discolors some mortal ' eyeballs while allow most the great unwashed ’s eyes their original hues .
