Current trends and possible therapeutic options against COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease, caused by SARS-CoV-2, which can be transmitted from person to person. SARS-CoV-2 has thought to be originated in bats and transmitted to humans. SARS-CoV-2 has ssRNA genome that is about 30kb in length and it enters lung epithelial cells using spikes (S) by binding with Angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2). Till date, there is no definitive treatment available for COVID-19 and currently, only symptomatic treatments are available. There is no vaccine developed to combat COVID-19 but scientists are working on developing different types of vaccines including nucleic acid vaccines, subunit vaccines and whole virus vaccines, that are effective and safe to use. Broad spectrum antivirals like ribavirin, lopinavir, ritonavir, arbidol, favipiravir, remdesivir are being test to lessen the viral load. Recently, ivermectin (anti-parasitic drug), has been administered in vitro and showed 99.8% reduction in SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells in 48 hours. Convalescent plasma (CP) treatments are also being used in order to treat critical cases, nevertheless, no drug has been approved yet. This review focuses on the transmission, clinical features, prevention, current treatments and future possible approaches that can be used to develop therapeutic options against COVID-19. J Microbiol Infect Dis 2019; 9(3):110-120.

Keywords

• SARS-CoV-2
• clinical features
• therapeutic options
• antivirals
• vaccines

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