A baby boy’s dark brown eyes turn bright BLUE at night after receiving COVID treatment

A six-month-old boy who was prescribed an antiviral drug to treat Covid had a bizarre reaction: his dark brown eyes turned bright blue within 18 hours of treatment.

The nameless child from Thailand received favipiravir, a treatment commonly used for flu and Ebola, which has been approved as a Covid treatment in parts of Asia – but not yet approved in the US.

Doctors in Bangkok who treated the child said the antiviral drug was released a fluorescent chemical that accumulated in the boy’s corneas.

While the boy’s eyes changed color shortly after treatment, they returned to their natural color five days after stopping the medication.

Within just 18 hours of the first dose, the boy’s mother noticed his eyes turning a bright blue color

In Thailand, favipiravir is the main antiviral given to children infected with SARS-CoV-2.

The most common side effects of the treatment include an increase in uric acid in the body, diarrhea, and a low white blood cell count, which account for about 20 percent of side effects.

Favipiravir is approved in Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Moldova and Kazakhstan and received emergency use approval in Italy in 2020.

The US began testing 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.

But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to approve favipiravir in the US.

The report on the child was published in April 2023, but the exact date of the update is unknown.

On the first day, he was given 82 milligrams, and 18 hours later, his mother noticed the change in eye color.

‘No bluish discoloration was observed in other areas such as skin, nails or oral and nasal mucosa. The symptoms improved after three days of treatment with favipiravir,” the researchers wrote in the paper study published in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics.

An eye examination was performed at the end of treatment.

“The patient was able to fixate and follow the light in all directions,” the study reads.

Researchers wrote that this fluorescence “may be due to the drug, its metabolites, or additional tablet components such as titanium dioxide and iron oxide yellow.”

Several medications can affect the eye, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, blood thinners, and antihistamines.

A class of medications called prostaglandins, used to treat glaucoma, have the side effect of darkening the iris color, which may be permanent.

A 2021 study reports the case of a 20-year-old man in India who experienced the exact same eye color change

He was given favipiravir and on the second day noticed a discoloration of his eyes – the same deep blue that returned to natural brown when the treatment was stopped.

Doctors also found that the cornea was clear and had no corneal bluish tinge, and no blue pigment deposition was observed on the surface of the iris or anterior lens capsule.

Although the boy is the youngest patient to receive the treatment, he is not the first to experience the bizarre side effect.

a Research reports from 2021 the case of a 20-year-old man in India who went through the exact eye color change.

He was given favipiravir and on the second day he noticed a discoloration of his eyes – the same deep blue that returned to natural brown when the treatment was stopped.

“We believed that the bluish tinge of the cornea might be related to favipiravir and advised the patient to immediately discontinue favipiravir. It was remarkable to see the patient’s corneas return to normal color the next day after stopping favipiravir,” said the paper published by a team from Medicine Healthway Hospitals in India.

After this case, the team searched the literature to find other cases, but determined that this man is the first case of favipiravir causing a bluish discoloration of the corneas.