Search

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world extraordinarily. This disease has a potential to cause a significantly severe course of disease leading to respiratory complications, multiple organ failure and possibly death. In the fight against this pandemic-causing disease, medical professionals around the world are searching for pharmacological agents that could treat and prevent disease progression and mortality. To speed the search of promising treatment options, already existing pharmacological agents are repurposed for the potential treatment of COVID-19 and tested in clinical trials. The aim of this literature review is to investigate the efficacy and safety of repurposed pharmacological agents for the treatment of COVID-19 at different pathophysiologic stages of the disease. For this literature review, online-databases PubMed and Google Scholar were utilised. Keywords "COVID-19", "SARS-CoV-2", "pathogenesis", "drug targets", "pharmacological treatment", "cytokine storm", "coagulopathy" and individual drug names were used. Scientific articles, including reviews, clinical trials, and observational cohorts, were collected and analysed. Furthermore, these articles were examined for references to find more clinical trials testing for the potential treatment of COVID-19. In total, 97 references were used to conduct this research paper.Results: The most beneficial pharmacological agent for the treatment of COVID-19 are corticosteroids, especially dexamethasone, for the treatment of mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients. Other promising agents are remdesivir for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia requiring minimal supplemental oxygen therapy, and IL-6 receptor antagonist monoclonal antibodies in severe COVID-19. Lopinavir/ritonavir, as well as chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin demonstrate the least efficacy in the treatment of COVID-19. The clinical benefits of the treatment of a COVID-19-specific coagulopathy with increased dosing of anticoagulation need further research and confirmation of randomised controlled trials.Conclusion: The search for pharmacological treatment of COVID-19 has elicited great controversy. Whereas drugs like chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, and lopinavir/ritonavir have not shown proven benefit, the agents remdesivir and dexamethasone are recommended for clinical use for the treatment of COVID-19. Further randomised trials for other pharmacological treatment strategies are awaited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Actual level of knowledge of treatment of COVID-19 disease caused by a type of coronavirus is that the disease cannot at present be cured by targeted therapy. Worldwide research is aiming to find a specific treatment, such as a vaccine or drug, for this type of coronavirus; this may help improve the situation, but it is highly expensive and time-consuming. The purpose of this paper is to review drug therapies approved in different parts of the world to treat COVID-19 and draw attention to ototoxicity as one of the adverse side-effects. Material and methods: Review of current literature was done in the scientific databases PubMed, ResearchGate, GoogleScholar, and Science-Direct. Studies were reviewed with reference to the inclusion criteria, then graded to assess the internal and external validity, leaving 50 studies for review. Results: According to scientific reports, possible antiviral pharmacological agents to treat COVID-19 consist of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, azitromycine, oseltamivir, and tocilizumab. In some cases, certain combinations may lead to additive ototoxicity as an adverse effect. Ototoxicity may be manifested by sensory and nervous hearing loss, tinnitus, imbalance, and cochlear-mandibular symptoms, which are sometimes temporary but sometimes permanent. Conclusion: Drug ototoxicity is well known as a cause of cochlear hearing loss, and so the use of new pharmacotherapy methods and drug combinations in the fight against the new coronavirus may have harmful effects. Ototoxicity needs to be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has spread around the world and caused serious public health and social problems. Although several vaccines have been authorized for emergency use, new effective antiviral drugs are still needed. Some repurposed drugs including Chloroquine, Hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir were immediately used to treat COVID-19 after the pandemic. However, the therapeutic effects of these drugs have not been fully demonstrated in clinical studies. In this paper, we found an antimalarial drug, Naphthoquine, showed good broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus activity. Naphthoquineinhibited HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43 and SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro, with IC50 = 2.05 ± 1.44 μM, 5.83 ± 0.74 μM, and 2.01 ± 0.38 µM, respectively. Time-of-addition assay was also performed to explore at which stage Naphthoquine functions during SARS-CoV-2 replication. The results suggested that Naphthoquine may influence virus entry and post-entry replication. Considering the safety of Naphthoquine was even better than that of Chloroquine, we think Naphthoquine has the potential to be used as a broad-spectrum drug for coronavirus infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]