Prospects for the development of drugs with anti-viral activity based on licorice

The current situation with the widespread of a socially dangerous virus from the genus Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and the announcement of a pandemic in connection with this demand the creation of new antiviral drugs since no specific treatment and prophylaxis against this disease has yet been found. Among medicinal plants that are widespread and exhibit multidirectional pharmacological activity, licorice should be noted. The active components contained in licorice, i.e. more than 20 triterpenoids and about 300 flavonoids coupled with glycyrrhizic acid (GL) referred to by the term "glycyrrhizin", have been widely studied for a long time. GL acts indirectly, interferes with the penetration of the virus into the cell, affects the components (HMGB1 protein) necessary for normal viral reproduction, and potentiates the production of interferon γ and α. GL acts against SARS-associated coronavirus infection by inducing the synthesis of nitric oxide synthase, which inhibits viral replication. However, GL may also be helpful in acute respiratory distress syndrome. The combination of the multidirectional pharmacological effects of GL and its derivatives make the licorice-containing preparations promising components of complex antiviral therapy. Currently, research into licorice-containing dosage forms continues from the perspective of creating vaginal suppositories with a thick extract of licorice. © 2021 Sami Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Novel and promising approaches in COVID-19 treatment. (COVID-19 dedicated issue.)

Novel coronavirus or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes severe respiratory infectious disease, known as coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Over the past few months, a considerable rise in the incidence rate and prevalence of COVID-19 infection have been witnessed. Considering the high disease burden and rapid spread of the COVID-19 and no effective treatment is currently existing, stem cells, engineered nanobiomaterials, natural killer cells based therapy, RNA metabolites and extracellular vesicles are promising alternatives to tackle devastating epidemic. This review spotlights the applications and potential of above-mentioned methods in the treatment of COVID-19.

Post corona: Chemicals, environmental factors, and public health

Nowadays that some countries are applying exit plans from corona restriction rules, the role of environmental health will become clear. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving the demand for disinfectants, pharmaceutical agents, masks and nutritional strategies, which has led to increased interest in public and environmental health. There is an urgent need to identify the health effect of various chemicals in our environment and consider the development and application of environmentally friendly chemicals including magnetic nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, silver nanowires, antibody-linked graphene sheets to verify them for various health problems. This review inspects the strategies to prevent and improve environmental health and the impact of chemicals in post-coronavirus infection.

Necessity of different countries to deal with similar phenomena of COVID-19 Coronavirus

The new outbreak of the Covid-19 virus from Wuhan, China, has shown to the world that a nanometer-sized biological particle can disrupt the entire health related and subsequently the economy, and even political relationships and infrastructures of countries. It may seem optimistic that such phenomenons should not magnify to the public because of intense fear and horror that creates, but on the other hand, illness mortality is almost as widespread as a war of attrition in all countries. In addition, its high mortality rate, even among physicians and nurses, suggests that a strange biological event with high genetic diversity has occurred at an unbelievably high transmission rate (Chen et al., 2020;Guo et al., 2020;Ji et al., 2020;Zhou et al., 2020). What was most clear to us at the time was that there was no consensus and scientific policy on the agreement in dealing with the virus. Different countries initially ordered a local and regional quarantine or even the whole country by hasty decisions, vice versa, in some countries;the decision was to permit the virus freely contaminate the sensitive humans until to be controlled by herd immunity. Therefore, different countries have adopted their own approaches to this issue. However, what to do? Alternatively, was it possible to make good scientific decisions based on the development of diagnostic and laboratory infrastructures, especially in the field of biological weapons or similar events? Perhaps the question should be asked this way. Are there well-developed laboratory, therapeutic, and hygienic infrastructures for such emerging biological phenomena in all countries? Given that, a few months after the outbreak and despite previous knowledge of the coronavirus family by scientific societies, its diagnostic kits and other rapid diagnostics are still deficient. Certainly, officials and decision makers in the health ministries should plan for a more scientific and practical approaches in dealing with similar issues in the future. In this regard, it should be noted that there is a need for reference laboratories with all the modern diagnostic facilities and techniques.