Pharmacological treatments of COVID-19

Abstract

The viral infection due to the new coronavirus or coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was reported for the first time in December 2019, was named by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV2), because of the very similar genome and also its related symptoms to SARS-CoV1. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with significant mortality, morbidity, and socioeconomic impact is considered by the WHO as a global public health emergency. Since there is no specific treatment available for SARS-CoV2 infection, and or COVID-19, several clinical and sub-clinical studies are currently undertaken to find a gold-standard therapeutic regimen with high efficacy and low side effect. Based on the published scientific evidence published to date, we summarized herein the effects of different potential therapies and up-to-date clinical trials. The review is intended to help readers aware of potentially effective COVID-19 treatment and provide useful references for future studies.

Efficacy and Safety of Levamisole Treatment in Clinical Presentations of Patients With COVID-19: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Controlled Trial

“…Nowadays the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is a global dilemma. Since the main pathogenic mechanism of the disease is unclear, many drugs have been evaluated in an attempt to relieve the symptoms (27). One of the suggestive agents used for systemic treatment of COVID-19 is levamisole because of its wide variety of immunological effects including regulation of neutrophils, macrophages, and T-cell activity.…”

“…Previous investigation found that lmmunomodulators play an important role in management of patients infected with COVID-19 (27,29). Levamisole is a safe and successful immunomodulatory drug, suggesting that in COVID-19 patients, levamisole may also contribute to attenuating the immune response..…”

An outlook on antigen-specific adoptive immunotherapy for viral infections with a focus on COVID-19

“…Besides, there are some antiviral medications capable of curbing viral replication, viral assembly and systemic spread of infection in the body, as well as some anti-inflammatory treatments capable of suppressing the post-infectious hyperinflammation, which have been trialed on COVID-19 patients ( Fig 1 ). Although many trials supported the efficacy of these treatments for COVID-19 patients [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , especially in terms of decrease in hospitalization, improvement of hospitalized patients’ condition, and reduced risk of ICU admission and mortality; further evidence failed to prove significant clinical benefit in use of some of the mentioned treatments (e.g. remdesivir and IL-6 receptor antagonists) [8] , [16] , and so regional guidelines for COVID-19 management have remained to be largely varied [17] , [18] .…”

A Robust High-throughput Fluorescent Polarization Assay for the Evaluation and Screening of SARS-CoV-2 Fusion Inhibitors

“…As of Feb 2021, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1][2] has infected more than 100 million people and cause two million life. Although several drugs have been "repurposed" for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection, [3][4] there is still a pressing need to identify novel anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics.…”