Indomethacin has a potent antiviral activity against SARS CoV-2 in vitro and canine coronavirus in vivo

Abstract

The outbreak of SARS CoV-2 has caused ever increasing attention and public panic all over the world. Currently, there is no specific treatment against the SARS CoV-2. Therefore, identifying effective antiviral agents to combat the disease is urgently needed. Previous studies found that indomethacin has the ability to inhibit the replication of several unrelated DNA and RNA viruses, including SARS-CoV. We found that indomethacin has a directly and potently antiviral activity against the SARS CoV-2 pseudovirus. In canine coronavirus-infected dogs, recovery occurred significantly sooner with symptomatic treatment + oral indomethacin (1 mg/kg body weight) daily treatments than with symptomatic treatment + ribavirin (10-15 mg/kg body weight) daily treatments (P =0.0031), but was not significantly different from that with symptomatic treatment + anti-canine coronavirus serum + canine hemoglobin + canine blood immunoglobulin + interferon treatments (P =0.7784).