He was 6 months old and had had a fever and cough for one day when he tested positive for COVID-19.
At the Bangkok hospital, he was prescribed favipiravir, an antiviral used against viruses such as influenza and Ebola. Just 18 hours later, his mother looked at his eyes in the sunlight and couldn’t believe it: the dark brown color they had always had had turned an intense indigo blue. Neither the baby’s skin, nails, nor hair changed—only his corneas.
The doctors immediately stopped the treatment, and five days later, the color returned to normal. The explanation was neither magic nor permanent damage: as it breaks down, favipiravir releases fluorescent compounds that can temporarily accumulate in the eye. It was such a rare phenomenon that it ended up being documented as a clinical case in a scientific journal.