An effective drug against COVID-19: reality or dream?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is well known as a novel member of the coronavirus family which caused a sudden outbreak of Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in China that quickly developed into a global pandemic. No effective approaches are found as yet for the therapy and epidemiological control of this new virus. We searched the literature in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, and MeSH, for articles and abstracts describing SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, pneumonia, clinical trials, drug, treatment, and medicine.

Areas covered: The present study aimed to comprehensively overview the current literature on effective anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs.

Expert opinion: Since the beginning of this pandemic disease, many studies have been conducted to find effective drugs to prevent COVID-19, because there are no specific drugs for the treatment of this disease. Most of these drugs with the antiviral potential effect toward COVID-19 are already used as the treatment of other infectious diseases. Some drugs that show the promising therapeutic potential in the initial clinical studies include remdesivir as an inhibitor of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and favipiravir as an inhibitor of virus replication. Currently, remdesivir received the FDA authorizes to use as an experimental drug for emergency use in COVID-19 patients.

KEYWORDS:

• SARS-CoV-2
• covid-19
• pneumonia
• clinical trials
• drug

Article highlights

• Remdesivir is an inhibitor of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, approved by the FDA for emergency use in hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19.

• Favipiravir prevents the replication of the virus that is in the clinical trial phase II/III to investigate the safety and efficacy of that for COVID-19.

• The therapeutic antibodies can be a specific target for SARS-CoV-2, but it considers as a long-term solution.

• Along with the antiviral therapy, targeting the pathways that hijack via viral infection can consider as a promising way to overcoming SARS-CoV-2 infections.

• Drug repurposing can increase the chance of overcoming SARS-CoV-2 infections and offer a time- and cost-efficient alternative for making new therapies available to patients.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.