A systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy and safety of arbidol in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is highly contagious, and the epidemic has spread to hundreds of countries around the world, and seriously threatens the life safety of people around the world. Arbidol is an antiviral drug with high potential against COVID-19, but evidence of effectiveness and safety is lacking. The systematic review protocol aims to formulate a research plan that can evaluate the efficacy and safety of arbidol for COVID-19. Methods: The retrieval time will be from the database establishment to June 2020. The retrieval database will include the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, OVID, CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, CBM, etc. The primary outcome will be clinical efficacy, and the secondary results will be accompanying symptoms, time for the temperature to return to normal, time of novel coronavirus nucleic acid turning negative, blood sample test, Computed Tomography examination, length of hospitalization, adverse reactions, and adverse events. RevManV.5.3 software will be used for meta-analysis, and fixed effects model, random-effects model, subgroup analysis, and descriptive analysis will be adopted according to the heterogeneity of the research results. Results: To provide the latest evidence of clinical efficacy and safety of arbidol in the treatment of COVID-19. Conclusion: Our study will provide the latest evidence analysis of the efficacy and safety of arbidol for COVID-19, to provide evidence-based medicine for the prevention and control of this epidemic. Registration details: PROSPERO CRD42020189203.

Prescription, over-the-counter (OTC), herbal, and other treatments and preventive uses for COVID-19

“… 177 and Wang et al. 178 that compared the use of TCM plus standard care, in comparison with standard care only, in COVID-19 patients. For these studies, the standard care included antiviral drugs, antibiotics, corticosteroids, supportive oxygen, and others, whereas TCM included more than a 100 herbals.…”

“…The top five most common were licorice root, baical skullcap root, pinellia rhizome, forsythia fruit, and bitter apricot seed . Potential positive benefits have been published, however, most of them have a high risk of bias and small sample size, 177 , 178 which do not allow us to truly recommend its use in COVID-19 patients.…”

“…It has been reported that TCM reduce the length of hospitalization in terms of clinical symptoms score showing positive results for COVID-19 symptom improvement in patients that received TCM compared to standard care. 177 , 178 Wang et al. 178 included studies with different scales to assess this outcome and it may explain the high heterogeneity (I 2 = 94%).…”

“… 177 , 178 Wang et al. 178 included studies with different scales to assess this outcome and it may explain the high heterogeneity (I 2 = 94%). However, in the Xiong et al.…”

Metal-Promoted Heterocyclization: A Heterosynthetic Approach to Face a Pandemic Crisis

“…Arbidol (uminefovir) is an oral antiviral drug with a broad spectrum of activity against many types of viruses. It has been licensed for the treatment of influenza A and B in Russia since 2003 and in China since 2006 [ 58 ]. Arbidol is a non-nucleoside membrane fusion inhibitor that prevents the interaction of the influenza virus with the host cell.…”