Authors : Rosme David, Belinda Mangalath Philip, Clint Sunny, Mamatha J, Vanditha S, Deepthi Mary George, Princy Louis Palatty
DOI : 10.18231/j.ijpp.2021.020
Volume : 8
Issue : 2
Year : 2021
Page No : 121-135
Background: A series of an acute atypical respiratory disease occurred during December 2019 in Wuhan, China, that quickly metamorphosed as a pandemic, spreading across the globe, leaving more than 104,911,186 infected and more than 2,278,579 dead, in its wake within a year. This Novel Coronavirus, was also called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease was called Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19). On 30th January 2020, The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, declared the novel coronavirus outbreak, a public health emergency of international concern and flagged off WHO’s highest level of alarm.
Objectives: To elaborate the various drug therapies used in trials and vaccines available for COVID-19
across the globe.
Materials and Methods: We compiled the literature searches under a single heading and scrutinized over
154 articles, for extracting data on the various pharmacotherapeutic approaches available to treat COVID-
19.
Conclusion: Despite wide and varied treatment guidelines being available, the cure or prevention is still
elusive for COVID-19. The categoric efficacy of vaccines must be proved to tackle the fast-mutating coronavirus.
Key findings: Current medical management is largely supportive with no targeted therapy available.
Several drugs including lopinavir-ritonavir, remdesivir, antibiotics, hydroxychloroquine, steroids,
anticoagulants, and antidiabetic drugs like metformin have been tried in clinical trials. Vaccines targeting
the three different components of SARS-CoV-2 viruses, in different phases of clinical trials world-wide,
have been made available.
Keywords: COVID-19, n-COV, Covid Vaccine, Remdesivir, SARS-CoV-2, Cytokine storm, Pandemic.