Light as a potential treatment for pandemic coronavirus infections: A perspective.

The recent outbreak of COVID-19, which continues to ravage communities with high death tolls and untold psychosocial and catastrophic economic consequences, is a vivid reminder of nature's capacity to defy contemporary healthcare. The pandemic calls for rapid mobilization of every potential clinical tool, including phototherapy-one of the most effective treatments used to reduce the impact of the 1918 "Spanish influenza" pandemic. This paper cites several studies showing that phototherapy has immense potential to reduce the impact of coronavirus diseases, and offers suggested ways that the healthcare industry can integrate modern light technologies in the fight against COVID-19 and other infections. The evidence shows that violet/blue (400-470 nm) light is antimicrobial against numerous bacteria, and that it accounts for Niels Ryberg Finsen's Nobel-winning treatment of tuberculosis. Further evidence shows that blue light inactivates several viruses, including the common flu coronavirus, and that in experimental animals, red and near infrared light reduce respiratory disorders, similar to those complications associated with coronavirus infection. Moreover, in patients, red light has been shown to alleviate chronic obstructive lung disease and bronchial asthma. These findings call for urgent efforts to further explore the clinical value of light, and not wait for another pandemic to serve as a reminder. The ubiquity of inexpensive light emitting lasers and light emitting diodes (LEDs), makes it relatively easy to develop safe low-cost light-based devices with the potential to reduce infections, sanitize equipment, hospital facilities, emergency care vehicles, homes, and the general environment as pilot studies have shown.

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Declaration of Competing Interest The authors certify that this manuscript is an original work and that besides presentation at conferences and related abstract publication, it has not been submitted or published, in whole or in part, in any other medium and is not under consideration for publication in any other journal. Furthermore, we the authors are liable for its content and for having contributed to the conception, design and implementation of the work, data analysis and data interpretation, and for having participated in writing and reviewing the text, as well as approving the final version submitted. Likewise, we accept the introduction of changes to the content, if necessary subsequent to review, and of changes to the style of the manuscript by the journal's editorial staff. We also declare that conflict of interest does not exist.