Pentoxifylline:
The antiviral property of pentoxifylline against tick-borne encephalitis virus, herpes simplex virus, vaccinia virus, and rotavirus has been shown in vitro, indicating the wide-spectrum of antiviral activity of pentoxifylline (Amvros’ eva et al. 1993). This also accords with the previous report, which demonstrated the suppression of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 replication in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (Fazely et al. 1991). Furthermore, in a randomized, controlled trial, adjunctive therapy with pentoxifylline in HIV patients with tuberculosis resulted in a statistically significant overall reduction in plasma HIV RNA compared to the control group (Wallis et al. 1996). The evaluation of pentoxifylline in HIV patients demonstrated a transient positive trend of change in CD4+ and CD8+ cells (Clerici et al. 1997)
There are limited, precise details on the antiviral mechanism of pentoxifylline. Concerning this question, research has been done to identify the stage at which pentoxifylline inhibits the replication of the Japanese encephalitis virus. The finding of this study provides further support for the hypothesis that the drug most likely exerted its inhibitory action on virus assembly and/or release (Sebastian et al. 2009) and, therefore, may have the potential to use a similar inhibitory effect(Figure 1) on SARS-CoV-2 virus as well.