Medical Management of COVID-19: Evidence and Experience

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and this infectious disease is termed COVID-19 in short. On a global scale, as of June 1, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) published statistics of 6,057,853 infected patients and 371,166 deaths worldwide. Despite reported observational data about the experimental use of certain drugs, there is no conclusively proven curative therapy for COV-ID-19 as of now; however, remdesivir received emergency use authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently for use in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. There are several ongoing clinical trials related to the pharmacological choices of therapy for COVID-19 patients; however, drug trials related to observational studies so far have yielded mixed results and therefore have created a sense of confusion among healthcare professionals (HCPs). In this review article, we seek to collate and provide a summary of treatment strategies for COVID-19 patients with a variable degree of illness and discuss pharmacologic and other therapies intended to be used either as experimental medi-cine/therapy or as part of supportive care in complicated cases of

An Assessment on Impact of COVID-19 Infection in a Gender Specific Manner

“…Various therapies are being tested globally. Nevertheless, large randomized controlled trials are not performed to examine the exact effectiveness for any drug [132]. Hydroxychloroquine shows anti-viral property by affecting the proteolytic processing and acidification process in the endosomal compartment.…”

“…It is an antiviral nucleoside analog and hampers the action of RNA dependent RNA polymerase activity of viruses. This drug showed a positive effect during animal studies conducted using the MERS and SARS [132]. Remdesivir obtained emergency use authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is being used in USA for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.…”

“…Convalescent plasma therapy has been documented as successful treatment option against various infectious diseases like polio, chickenpox, SARS-CoV, H1N1 influenza, and MERS-CoV [132,148,149]. The collected plasma contains antibodies against the virus and can suppress viral replication, promote phagocytosis, and complement activation.…”

Identifying the Quality Nuggets Amid the Explosion of COVID-19-Related Scientific Communication: An Insurmountable Challenge?

“…The recent reports by Bose and colleagues [1] and by Yanai [2] in this journal review the contemporary data on the management of patients infected with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and provide a meta-analysis of the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension among COVID-19 patients with severe vs. non-severe disease, respectively. Both studies provide timely contributions on key clinical and epidemiological issues crucial to clinicians and scientists in the face of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, as clinicians have been accustomed to instantly accessible high-quality information to support evidence-based decisions.…”

“…Given the tremendous volume of retrievable original reports, publications synthesizing the available data on COVID-19-related topics such as that reported by Bose et al [1] can be indispensable starting points for clinicians and scientists. However, another striking finding of the citation search was that despite the brief duration the COVID-19 pandemic, spanning barely over 6 months, there was a remarkably large volume of review articles, with over 3,800 review citations, making it all but impracticable for clinicians and scientists to make an informed selection among the retrieved citations.…”