A contemporary look at COVID-19 medications: available and potentially effective drugs

Abstract

Objective: There have been significant changes to the management of COVID-19 in recent months, including protocols and guidelines designed to prevent, diagnose, and treat the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Several management options have been suggested and have since gained popularity, though we expect additional modifications to be made, as well as more new cases in the coming months, given a lack of definitive treatment and well-controlled experiments. This review highlights the available and potential treatments, along with the challenges associated with each.

Materials and methods: We conducted a comprehensive overview of all peer-reviewed studies, editorial comments, and letters to the editor based on a search in PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus. The following terms were used: "COVID-19," "SARS-CoV-2," "drug," "treatment," "medication," and "management." All searches were done between March and May 20, 2020.

Results: There are several potential medications available for COVID-19, such as Interferon α (IFN-α), Teicoplanin, Ribavirin, Galidesivir, Lopinavir/Ritonavir, Chloroquine phosphate, Arbidol, Velpatasvir, Favipiravir, Ledipasvir, Remdesivir, Sofosbuvir, Darunavir, Qingfei Paidu Decoction (QPD), and Imatinib. However, we do not have a definitive and specific treatment yet.

Conclusions: We are expecting to have more cases in the coming weeks/months. Therefore, further research is needed to characterize the disease behavior, to find the absolute drug, and to refine the treatment.