Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Pharmacology, SMS Medical College and Attached Hospitals, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India,
2 Department of Anatomy, SMS Medical College and Attached Hospitals, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
3 Institute of Heart and Lung Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support, MGM Healthcare, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Abstract
In December 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2)
became evident in Wuhan, China, and then spread rapidly worldwide. Numerous drugs
and vaccines are under clinical trial pipeline for investigation against coronavirus disease
2019 (COVID‑19) infection. The aim of this systematic review was to discuss about
investigational new as well as repurposed drugs currently under trial for COVID‑19
infection. An exhaustive search was carried out for this review article including scientific
databases of PubMed, Embase, ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO International Clinical Trials
Registry Platform, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and Scopus
search engines using keywords of “Coronavirus,” “COVID‑19,” “MERS‑CoV,” “MERS,”
“SARS‑CoV‑2,” and “SARS‑CoV‑1” and “Solidarity trial” and their Persian‑equivalent
keywords from inception until May 2020. After screening the 296 articles searched from
different databases (PubMed = 97 and other search engines = 199), 52 articles were included
in the final systematic review. It was found that the World Health Organization introduced
a Solidarity international clinical trial to discover an effectual treatment of COVID‑19. Based
on established in vitro and in vivo activity against different strains of coronaviruses, four
repurposed drugs – remdesivir, lopinavir/ ritonavir combination, lopinavir/ritonavir
with beta‑1a, chloroquine, and hydroxychloroquine – were considered for clinical trial
against COVID‑19. A number of other drugs and vaccines are under clinical trial pipeline
for investigation against COVID‑19 infection. Despite multitude of treatment options
available, treatment of choice is still not well established. Moreover, optimum supportive
care and monitoring of seriously ill patients is the need of the hour.
Keywords
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