COVID-19 Infection in Pregnancy: A Review.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is a highly contagious viral illness caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has had a catastrophic effect on the world's demographics, resulting in more than 3.8 million deaths worldwide and establishing itself as the most serious global health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Several questions remain unanswered regarding the effects of COVID-19 disease during pregnancy. Although most infections are mild in high-risk populations, the severe disease frequently leads to intubation, intensive care unit admission, and, in some cases, death. Hormonal and physiological changes in the immune and respiratory systems, cardiovascular function, and coagulation may affect the progression of COVID-19 disease in pregnancy. However, the consequences of coronavirus infection on implantation, fetal growth and development, labor, and newborn health have yet to be determined, and, consequently, a coordinated global effort is needed in this respect. Principles of management concerning COVID-19 in pregnancy include early isolation, aggressive infection control procedures, oxygen therapy, avoidance of fluid overload, consideration of empiric antibiotics (secondary to bacterial infection risk), laboratory testing for the virus and co-infection, fetal and uterine contraction monitoring, prevention, and / or treatment of thromboembolism early mechanical ventilation for progressive respiratory failure, individualized delivery planning, and a team-based approach with multispecialty consultations. This review focuses on COVID-19 during pregnancy, its management, and the area where further investigations are needed to reduce the risk to mothers and their newborns.

Evaluation of the Binding Affinity of Anti-Viral Drugs against Main Protease of SARS-CoV-2 Through a Molecular Docking Study.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a life intimidating viral infection caused by a positive sense RNA virus belonging to the Coronaviridae family, named severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARA-CoV-2). Since its outbreak in December 2019, the pandemic has spread to more than 200 countries, infected more than 26 million, and claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people. As a disease, COVID-19 can lead to severe and occasionally fatal respiratory problems in humans. Infection with this virus is associated with fever, cough, dyspnea, and muscle aches, and it may progress to pneumonia, multiple organ failure, and death. To date, there is no specific antiviral treatment against this virus. However, the main viral protease has been recently discovered and it is regarded as an appropriate target for antiviral agents in the search for the treatment of COVID-19, due to its pivotal role in polyproteins processing during viral replication. AIM: Consequently, this study intends to evaluate the effectiveness of FDA-approved anti-viral drugs against SARA-CoV-2 through a molecular docking study. METHODS: AutoDock Vina in PyRx platform was used for docking analysis against the main viral protease (Mpro) (PDB ID 6LU7), and Computed Atlas of Surface Topography of proteins (CASTp 3.0) was applied for detecting and characterizing cavities, pockets, and channels of this protein structure. RESULTS: Results revealed that among the conventional antiviral drugs, the protease inhibitors, lopinavir, amprenavir, indinavir, maraviroc, saquinavir, and daclatasvir showed high binding affinity and interacted with amino acid residues of the binding site. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, protease inhibitors may be effective potential antiviral agents against Mpro to combat SARS-CoV-2.

Natural products and their derivatives against coronavirus: A review of the non-clinical and pre-clinical data.

Several corona viral infections have created serious threats in the last couple of decades claiming the death of thousands of human beings. Recently, corona viral epidemic raised the issue of developing effective antiviral agents at the earliest to prevent further losses. Natural products have always played a crucial role in drug development process against various diseases, which resulted in screening of such agents to combat emergent mutants of corona virus. This review focuses on those natural compounds that showed promising results against corona viruses. Although inhibition of viral replication is often considered as a general mechanism for antiviral activity of most of the natural products, studies have shown that some natural products can interact with key viral proteins that are associated with virulence. In this context, some of the natural products have antiviral activity in the nanomolar concentration (e.g., lycorine, homoharringtonine, silvestrol, ouabain, tylophorine, and 7-methoxycryptopleurine) and could be leads for further drug development on their own or as a template for drug design. In addition, a good number of natural products with anti-corona virus activity are the major constituents of some common dietary supplements, which can be exploited to improve the immunity of the general population in certain epidemics.

Recent Advances in the Synthesis and Biological Activity of 8-Hydroxyquinolines

Compounds containing the 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) 1 nucleus exhibit a wide range of biological activities, including antimicrobial, anticancer, and antifungal effects. The chemistry and biology of this group have attracted the attention of chemists, medicinal chemists, and professionals in health sciences. A number of prescribed drugs incorporate this group, and numerous 8-HQ- based molecules can be used to develop potent lead compounds with good efficacy and low toxicity. This review focusses on the recent advances in the synthesis of 8-HQ derivatives with different pharmacological properties, including anticancer, antiviral, and antibacterial activities. For this purpose, recent relevant references were searched in different known databases and search engines, such as MEDLINE (PubMed), Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Cochrane, Scientific Information Database (SID), SciFinder, and Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Knowledge. This review article provides a literature overview of the various synthetic strategies and biological activities of 8-HQ derivatives and covers the recent related literature. Taken together, compounds containing the 8-HQ moiety have huge therapeutic value and can act as potential building blocks for various pharmacologically active scaffolds. In addition, several described compounds in this review could act leads for the development of drugs against numerous diseases including cancer.

A Perspective on Emerging Therapeutic Interventions for COVID-19.

Coronaviruses are enveloped positive-sense RNA viruses with an unusual large RNA genome and a unique replication mechanism, which are characterized by club-like spikes that protrude from their surface. An outbreak of a novel coronavirus 2019 infection has posed significant threat to the health and economies in the whole world. This article reviewed the viral replication, pathogenicity, prevention and treatment strategies. With a lack of approved treatment options for this virus, alternative approaches to control the spread of disease is in urgent need. This article also covers some management strategies which may be applied to this virus outbreak. Ongoing clinical studies related to possible treatments for COVID-19, potential vaccines, and alternative medication such as natural compounds are also discussed.