  A novel strain of coronavirus, namely, COVID-19 has been identified in Wuhan
city of China in December 2019. There are no specific therapies available and
investigations regarding the treatment of the COVID-19 are still lacking. This
prompted us to perform a preliminary in silico study on the COVID-19 protease
with anti-malarial compounds in the search of potential inhibitor. We have
calculated log P and log S values in addition to molecular docking and PASS
predictions. Among the seven studied compounds, mepacrine appears as the
potential inhibitor of the COVID-19 followed by chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine
and phomarin. Therefore, these anti-malarial drugs may be potential drug
candidate for the treatment of this novel coronavirus. A detailed analysis on
these inhibitors is currently in progress and clinical studies are invited to
investigate their potential medicinal use for the COVID-19.
