Abstract

Abstract

COVID -19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has threatened worldwide populations with high morbidity and mortality. In search for countermeasures, tremendous scientific work and publications have been released. Based on that, we reviewed the most relevant scientific articles and reports published by the PubMed, World Health Organization, American Food and Drug Administration and many scientific journals including those from Europe, China and Korea to summarize drugs used in treatment of COVID19 from a pharmacological view.  This review displays and summarizes the recent literatures on COVID-19 and repurposed drugs focusing on their mechanism of actions. Since there are no specific antiviral drugs have been approved for SARS-CoV infections, weak base drugs with known mechanism of actions through in vitro studied have been utilized. These weak base drugs such as chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin become protonated and ionized in acidic endosomes /lysosomes by different degrees leading to increase in their pH and subsequently suppression of the enzyme functions and viral processing. In addition, corticosteroids have been used in severely ill COVID-19 patients for their immune-modulation properties. Nevertheless, these drugs still need confirmation for their use by randomized clinical trials.

Conclusion: These drugs have shown effectiveness in suppressing virus development and propagation at the outbreak in spite not being undergone randomized clinical trials.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-S infection, Chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, Corticosteroids.

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