Effective drugs used to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection and the current status of vaccines

Graphical abstract
Highlights • Drug repurposing, depicting patented medicines as an effective technique to develop drugs. • Drug repurposing, compared to de novo drug discovery, could shorten the duration and reduce costs. • Remdesivir and Favipiravir, despite having side effects, were more promising drugs for SARS-CoV-2 infection. • Considering the unparalleled morbidity and deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, a vaccine against COVID-19 is urgently needed.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a causal factor of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Drug repurposing, portraying patented drugs as a successful drug development technique, could shorten the period and minimize costs relative to de novo drug exploration. Recently several drugs have been used as anti-SARS-CoV-2 such as Remdesivir, Favipiravir, Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, Lopinavir/Ritonavir, Nafamostat mesylate and so on. Despite such efforts, there is currently no successful broad-spectrum antiviral countermeasures to combat SARS-CoV-2 or possibly potential CoVs pandemic. Therefore it is desperately important to recognize and test widely efficient, reliable anti-CoV therapies now and in the future. Remdesivir and Favipiravir were more promising despite having side effects; it had prominent efficacy and efficiency while still not yet approved as the official anti-viral drug for SARS CoV-2. In this review, we summarizes the current drug and vaccine discovery status against SARS-CoV-2, predicting that these efforts will help create effective drugs and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2.