Recent advances in peptide research revolutionized therapeutic discoveries for various infectious diseases. In view of the ongoing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need to develop potential therapeutic options. Intense and accomplishing research is being carried out to develop broad-spectrum vaccines and treatment options for corona viruses, due to the risk of recurrent infection by the existing strains or pandemic outbreaks by new mutant strains. Developing a novel medicine is costly and time consuming, which increases the value of repurposing existing therapies. Since, SARS-CoV-2 shares significant genomic homology with SARS-CoV, we have summarized various peptides identified against SARS-CoV using in silico and molecular studies and also the peptides effective against SARS-CoV-2. Dissecting the molecular mechanisms underlying viral infection could yield fundamental insights in the discovery of new antiviral agents, targeting viral proteins or host factors. We postulate that these peptides can serve as effective components for therapeutic options against SARS-CoV-2, supporting clinical scientists globally in selectively identifying and testing the therapeutic and prophylactic agents for COVID-19 treatment. In addition, we also summarized the latest updates on peptide therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2.

Due to long term morbidity and mortality associated with transfusion transmissible infections (TTI), the present study was undertaken to find out the prevalence of transfusion transmissible seropositive infections among both voluntary and replacement blood donors over a period of ten years at a tertiary care hospital. Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the seroprevalence of transfusion transmissible infections among blood donors. Material and methods: This is a retrospective study conducted on all voluntary and replacement blood donors in a tertiary care hospital for a period of 10 years from 2010 to 2019. Blood samples were screened for HIV, HBV, HCV by ELISA, for syphilis by rapid plasma reagin test and malarial parasites. All seroreactive blood bags considered as positive for TTIs were discarded. Result: Out of total 18490 donor's blood units screened using standard blood tests for transfusion transmissible infections, replacement donors constituted 26.2% and 73.8% were voluntary blood donors. A total of 161 samples (0.87%) were found to be positive for TTIs. Seroprevalence of HIV, HBV, HCV and Syphilis was found to be 0.13%, 0.62%, 0.08% and 0.02% respectively. No donors were found positive for malaria parasites. Conclusion: Overall seroprevalence of TTI was 0.87% with high prevalence of HBV infection when compared to other TTIs. Safe blood transfusion is still a challenge with this prevalence rate. Hence there is a need of more sensitive screening tests especially in screening HBV infection to minimize TTIs along with strict donor selection criteria.