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Drug Repurposing for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19

DISCOVERIES (ISSN 2359-7232), 2020, October-December issue

CITATION: 

Hossain MS, Hami I, Sawrav MSS, Rabbi MF, Saha O, Bahadur NM, Rahaman MM. Drug Repurposing for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19: A Clinical Landscape. Discoveries 2020, 8(4): e121. DOI: 10.15190/d.2020.18


Submitted: October 20, 2020; Revised: November 17, 2020; Accepted: November 18, 2020; Published: December 16, 2020; 

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Drug Repurposing for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19: A Clinical Landscape

Md. Shahadat Hossain (1), Ithmam Hami (1), Md. Sad Salabi Sawrav (1), Md. Fazley Rabbi (1), Otun Saha (2), Newaz Mohammed Bahadur (3), Md. Mizanur Rahaman (2,*)

(1) Department of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Noakhali-3814, Bangladesh

(2) Department of Microbiology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh

(3) Department of Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Noakhali-3814, Bangladesh


*Corresponding author: Md. Mizanur Rahaman, Department of Microbiology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000; Email: razu002@du.ac.bd; Phone: +8801796585290.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus strain responsible for the current pandemic of COVID-19, has rendered the entire humanity suffering. Several months have passed since the pandemic has struck. However, the world is still looking for an effective treatment plan to battle the viral infection. The first vaccine just received emergency approval in December 2020 for use in USA and UK. These are excellent news, however, the worldwide distribution of such vaccine, the possibility of virus mutation and the lack of data regarding the long-term effects of such vaccines are a significant concern. In addition, although remdesivir was recently approved by the FDA to be used as a clinical drug against COVID-19, it hasn’t stood out yet as a proven form of therapeutics. Such inability to produce a novel therapy has caused enough inconveniences for the affected people worldwide. Repurposing the already available drugs to fight against the virus seems to be a reasonable option amidst such uncertainty. Given the vast collection of potential treatment candidates to be explored against COVID-19, there is a decent chance that a success in this regard will serve the intermediary purpose of clinically treating the infection until a COVID-19 vaccine is widely distributed worldwide and will be able to treat COVID-19 patients that do not adequately respond to vaccines. Such treatments may prove very useful in future coronavirus outbreaks too. Proper research into these repurposing treatments may yield a certain insight into the field of novel treatment production as well. This review study accumulates a relevant set of information about drugs and vaccines against COVID-19, in terms of their repurposing properties and the specific phases of clinical trials they are undergoing across the world.  A potential timeline is also suggested to estimate when an effective result can be expected from the ongoing clinical trials for a better anticipation of the drug landscape. This study will hopefully help accelerate investment of resources into development and discovery of drugs and vaccines against the infection.

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    - Kinal Bhatt et al. 2021 (Larking Health System, FL, USA); Bhatt K, Agolli A, Patel MH, et al. High mortality co-infections of COVID-19 patients: mucormycosis and other fungal infections. Discoveries. 2021;9(1):e126. 
    27 citations in the past 1 year - $1000 prize

    - Hasnain Jan et al. 2020 (Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan); Jan H, Faisal S, Khan A, et al. COVID-19: Review of Epidemiology and Potential Treatments Against 2019 Novel Coronavirus. Discoveries. 2020;8(2):e108. 
    23 citations in the past 2 years - $400 prize

    Congratulations! Prizes will be received by the awardees in July 2022!

  • 2021, July| 2021, Jul-September

    Due to the high volume of the submitted articles, both Discoveries and Discoveries Reports are experiencing processing and publication delays during the months of July-September 2021. We will get back to the normal processing and publication times starting in October 2021. Note that our editorial and administrativ work is fully funded by our publishing house at this time and we are striving to KEEP THE NO FEE/NO CHARGE strategy in place as long as possible. 

  • 2021, January| AWARDS!

    2022 DISCOVERIES AWARDS! Discoveries will offer $1000 and $400 awards in early 2022, for the most cited (2021 ISI Citations) and visible articles published in 2018-2021.

  • 2020, November| Follow us on Twitter!

    You can now follow the latest Discoveries news and updates on Twitter! (@DiscoveriesNews) 

  • 2020, August| For Authors!

    Due to a high volume of article submissions, our peer-review process takes more than usual. The pre-screening decision is released in 1-2 days, while the peer-review process lasts between 10 and 20 days.  

  • 2020, April | For Authors!

    WE DO NOT TOLERATE ANY MISCONDUCT! Please be aware that we are testing all received articles with specialized software for PLAGIARISM and WE WILL TAKE MEASURES if your article is already published or in consideration for publication by other journals! This may result in serious professional consequences for the authors. The latest striking case is the following article which is already published and was re-submitted here.  

  • 2020, April | For Authors!

    We are happy to let you know that all articles published in Discoveries are now included in PubMedCentral (PMC). New accepted articles will be included in PMC and PubMed within 1-2 weeks after their publication.

  • 2020, January | For Authors!

    Starting in January 2020, Discoveries will also consider articles submitted by Discoveries' Editorial Board members. However, only a small number of such articles (maximum 4 articles/year) will be considered for publication after the peer-review process, and the authors who are also our editors will be clearly disclosed on our website.  

  • 2019, September | Indexed by PMC

    Discoveries is now indexed by PubMedCentral and Pubmed. The agreement with US National Library of Medicine was signed on September 10, 2019. Our next step is ISI Web of Science indexing. NOTE: previously published articles will be included on PubMed in early 2020.

  • 2019, September | PubMed inclusion!

    We are happy to let you know that Discoveries successfuly passed the last step (Technical Review) required for PubMedCentral and PubMed inclusion!

  • 2019, July | PubMed inclusion News!

    We are happy to receive positive comments from PMC/NLM-NIH regarding Discoveries' last step (Technical Review) required for PubMedCentral and PubMed inclusion. We will let you know once whole indexing process is completed. 

  • 2019| Sharing and Distribution!

    All articles published in Discoveries are Open Access articles distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and it is not used for commercial purposes.

  • 2018-2019 | For Authors!

    From now on and for at least 1 year, we will only accept articles from authors that are NOT members of Discoveries' Editorial Board. All articles submitted by our editors will be immediately rejected until further notice (one accepted article was already rejected). 

  • 2018 | PubMed inclusion News!

    Discoveries successfully passed the Scientific Quality Review by NLM-NIH for PubMedCentral and PubMed indexing. This is the first and the most important step towards PubMedCentral and PubMed indexing! The second (last) step is the Technical Review.

  • 2016, April | Faster Peer-Review

    Starting on April 13th 2016, all articles selected for a peer-review will receive the post peer-review decision within ~10 days. The initial pre-screening time will remain the same (48h from the submission of the manuscript). This decision will significantly accelerate the publication, with no effect on the quality of the peer-review process.

  • 2016, February | Manuscript submission

    Discoveries is commited to excellence, quality and high editorial standards. We are receiving an increasing number of manuscripts for which the identity of the authors/corresponding author can't be verified. Please NOTE that ALL these articles were and will be immediately REJECTED. Indicating an institutional email address is the easiest way to overcome this problem! Moreover, we do not accept any pressure on our editorial board to accept a manuscript. This results in a prompt rejection of the article.

    Editorial Policies
  • 2016, January | Main Objective

    After reaching all proposed milestones until now (including being indexed by Google Scholar in 2014), Discoveries' next Aim is PubMed indexing of all its articles (already published and upcoming). There will be no charge for the submission or publication of articles before Discoveries is indexed.

  • 2015, August | Discoveries - on PubMed

    We are happy to announce that our first Discoveries articles were included in PMC and PubMed. More articles (submitted by NIH funded authors) are now processed for being included.

    Discoveries articles now on PubMed
  • 2015, April | Special Issue

    DISCOVERIES published the SPECIAL ISSUE entitled "INFLAMMATION BETWEEN DEFENSE AND DISEASE: Impact on Tissue Repair and Chronic Sickness".

    Special Issue on "Inflammation"
  • 2015 | Ischemia Collection

    DISCOVERIES launched a call for papers for a Collection of Articles with focus on "ISCHEMIA". If you are interested to submit a manuscript, please contact us at info@discoveriesjournals.org

  • 2014, September | Special Issue

    DISCOVERIES just publish the SPECIAL ISSUE entitled "CELL SECRETION & MEMBRANE FUSION" in September 2014. Initially scheduled for publication between October 2014-March 2015, this issue was successfully published earlier than scheduled. 

    Special Issue
  • 2014, April | Indexed by Google Scholar

    All our published articles are now indexed by Google Scholar! First citations to Discoveries articles are included! Search for the article's title (recommended) or the authors:

    Google Scholar Search
  • 2014 | DISCOVERIES

    DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) are now assigned to all our published manuscripts in Discoveries. DOI uniquely identifies an article and is provided by CrossRef.

    CrossRef
  • 2013, July | Manuscript Submission

    Submit your manuscript FREE, FAST and EASY ! (in less than 1 minute)! There are NO fees for the manuscript submission or publishing of the accepted manuscripts.
    read more

  • 2013, July | DISCOVERIES

    We are now ACCEPTING MANUSCRIPTS for publishing in DISCOVERIES. We aim publishing a small number of high impact experimental articles & reviews (around 40/year) to maintain a high impact factor. Domains of interest: all areas related to Medicine, Biology and Chemistry ...

    read more
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