School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-1-2020

Abstract

COVID-19 is an infection disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). COVID-19 is a mild to severe respiratory illness which has caused significant disruption to normal life over the past few months, nearly bringing parts of the world to a halt. As of 26 August 2020, more than 24 million COVID-19 infections have been reported and 821,000 deaths are associated with this disease [1]. According to the WHO (Geneva, Switzerland) and the US CDC (MD, USA), the clinical manifestation of COVID-19 is the presence of fever or chills, sore throat, dry cough, fatigue, muscle/body aches, headache, loss of taste/smell, congestion/runny nose, nausea/vomiting or diarrhea, in addition to respiratory symptoms [2]. Unfortunately, SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with pre-existing disease conditions (e.g., hypertension and diabetes) can cause severe complications and, as a result, mortality [2]. Until today, no drugs or vaccine(s) have been approved to combat this disease. About 3115 clinical trials are registered to develop efficient vaccines or treatments for COVID-19 [3]. Several antivirals, such as lopinavir, ritonavir and nelfinavir, as well as the antimalarials chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been screened as potential therapeutic agents to combat SARS-CoV-2 [4]. However, none of them proved clinically beneficial. Considering the emergence of COVID-19, the development of antiviral agents that can block the virus’ entry into cells or target various elements of viral replication is highly sought.

Comments

Original published version available at doi.org/10.4155/fdd-2020-0024

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

Future Drug Discovery

DOI

10.4155/fdd-2020-0024

Academic Level

faculty

Mentor/PI Department

Immunology and Microbiology

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.