Journal of Infectious Diseases Diagnosis and Therapy
Editorial Open Access
Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Treatment Options
Mujib Ullah*
Interventional Regenerative Medicine and Imaging Lab, Department of Radiology,
School of Medicine, Stanford University, California, USA
*Corresponding author: Mujib Ullah, Email: ullah@stanford.edu
Received: 11 February 2020; Accepted: 13 April 2020; Published: 17 April
2020
Abstract
Coronavirus also called SARS-COV-2 showed highly pathogenic,
caused severe or even life-threatening diseases, and still transmitted
from person-to-person. Given fast evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak,
world health organization declared its outbreak as pandemic. Until
now, no drugs or biologics have been proven to be efective for the
prevention or treatment of COVID-19. Mainstream medicine has little
in its arsenal for viral diseases. Some promising agents are selectively
RNA inhibitors, an antimalarial agent, an HIV protease inhibitor, and
an infuenza viral neuraminidase inhibitor, which showed good clinical
efcacy in treating COVID-19.
Keywords: RNA virus; Coronavirus; COVID-19; World
Pandemic
Short Review
Coronavirus are enveloped, positive-stranded RNA viruses with
nucleocapsid [1-3]. So far it appears that COVID-19 predominantly
afects the lower respiratory tract leading to break down of the lung
cells, with infltration of fuid, hemorrhage, and infammatory cells into
the alveolar space that manifest the disease further [2,4-6]. As a result
of infammatory/repair process, these areas develop pneumonia [7].
Coronaviruses uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) to target
cells on the epithelium of the lungs, intestine, and blood vessels [5,8,9].
Many viruses require surface proteins for cell fusion and entry
[8,10]. Coronavirus has three major proteins, named, spike (S)
protein, envelope (E) protein, nucleocapsid protein (N) and membrane
(M) protein [1,2,8,9]. The N is a structural protein that binds to the
coronavirus RNA genome, thus creating a shell around the nucleic
materials [2,8,9]. The S protein is responsible for host infection by
facilitating the attachment and enables viral entry into the host cell
[2,9,10]. ACE2 is an endogenous membrane protein that facilitates
COVID-19 infection (Figure: 1) [8,10].
Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Scientifc Open Access Journals LLC.
There is currently no vaccine or treatment for coronavirus disease
[11,12]. The pandemic of coronavirus disease has accelerated the race
for development of vaccines and other therapeutic options [11,12].
Chloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria and arthritis, was approved
by the US Food and Drug Administration to be tested as a treatment
for coronavirus [12]. Chloroquine is being tested in various clinical
trials, while other antivirals drugs are also planned to be fast-tracked
for testing for coronavirus such as Favilavir and others as mentioned
in Table 1 [2,11-15]. There is no specifc medicine to prevent or treat
coronavirus disease. Listed drugs in table one may be used as supportive
care to help the patients.
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Drugs/Compounds Mechanism of Action Classifcation
Favipiravir/Galidesivir/ Remdesivir Potently inhibits the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase Antiviral
Epetraborole hydrochloride Inhibits growth Antibacterial
Saquinavir/ Nelfnavir Protease inhibitor Antiviral
Carflzomib Proteasome inhibitor Antiviral
Zanamivir Neuraminidase inhibitor Antiviral
Ribavirin Broad spectrum antiviral agent Antiviral
Bimosiamose Inhibitor of S protein and ACE2 Antiviral, Anti-infammatory
Chloroquine Anti-malarial drug An antimalarial agent
Actemra Inhibits the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase Antiviral, Anti-infammatory
TJM2/AT-100/TZLS-501/BPI-002/
INO-4800
Neutralizing antibody, inhibit virus, vaccine
Antibody, Anti-infammatory, Recombinant
proteins
Table1: Here is a list of the major coronavirus drugs that have the potential to become major coronavirus vaccines or antivirals for treating the
coronavirus infection.
Figure 1: Illustration of COVID-19 VIRUS.