Background: Dapsone is helpful in the molecular regulation of inflammasome activation, ubiquitin, one/two-electron oxidation, ubiquitination cascade, and myeloperoxidase/halide system.
Objective: To study whether lung inflammation, inflammatory cytokine production, viral RNA, and sustained interferon (IFN) response by dapsone are responsible for its observed preventive treatment effects, functioning as a competitor against viral diseases.
Methods: We compared Hansen's disease (HD) patients with viral respiratory diseases (VRDs) after prescribing dapsone as a standard treatment from 2005 to 2019.
Results: The 3705 VRD participants who received the dapsone intervention compared to the 1172 VRD participants in the control group demonstrated T2 (M = 269.88, SD = 88.70, 95% CI 266.13-273.62, p-value < .00001):T3 (M = 59.75, SD = 93.36, 95% CI 51.36-68.14, p-value < .00001) definitely proves that VRD is very low when dapsone is taken, and very high when not taken. The t-value is −3.42, and the p-value is 0114. (significant at p < 0.05). It demonstrated significantly more prevalence of VRD in the DDS unprescribed group. We designed the Factor consisting of the dapsone taking group and anti-Alzheimer's disease drug (AAD) taking Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosed group, and it was strongly negatively correlated with the prevalence of Bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It means that dapsone treated and AAD exacerbated them, but both had nothing to do with Pneumonia.
Conclusion: This study provides theoretical clinical data that dapsone prevents and treats viral respiratory diseases and their related Bronchitis and COPD during the pandemic; moreover, AAD should be stopped.