Abstract

COVID-19 - DRUG REPURPOSING

Remya R. S.*, Shankari E. and K. Dhunmati

ABSTRACT

Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS CoV-2) a newly discovered corona virus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Currently, there is no efficacious treatment option available for this deadly contagious disease and so drug repurposing is the only option for a faster recovery from COVID-19. Drug repurposing is a process of identifying new uses for approved or investigational drugs and it is considered as a very effective strategy for drug discovery as it involves less time and cost to find a therapeutic agent. The present review will focus on the repurposing efficacy of the currently used drugs against COVID-19 and their safety. Relevant articles with experimental studies conducted in-silico, in-vitro, in-vivo; clinical trials in humans, case reports, and news archives were selected for the review. Remdesivir, favipiravir, ribavirin, lopinavir, ritonavir, darunavir, arbidol, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, tocilizumab, interferons, dexamethazone Ivermectin, nafamostat, cepharanthine, statins and apilimod are the few drugs which have shown good inhibitory effects against the SARS-CoV2 invitro as well as in clinical conditions and they are reviewed in the present article.

Keywords: Drug- Repurposing, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Corona virus, Pandemic.