COVID-19: a review of treatment strategies and candidate vaccines

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the acute respiratory syndrome, acute inflammatory response of the respiratory system, vascular injury, microangiopathy, angiogenesis, and widespread thrombosis. Four stages of COVID-19 have been determined;the first stage starts with an upper respiratory tract infection, the second stage starts by the onset of shortness of breath and pneumonia, the third stage starts by worsening of clinical symptoms followed by hyperinflammation, and the fourth stage is death or recovery of the patient. There is currently no successful treatment specifically for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Based on the pathological features and different clinical stages of COVID-19, especially in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19, the drug groups used includeed antiviral agents, anti-inflammatory drugs/anti-trauma drugs, and heparin with Low molecular weight, plasma, and hyperimmune immunoglobulin. During the emergency of the COVID-19 outbreak, clinical researchers are using a variety of possible therapies to test them. It seems that the precision medicine approach can answer the COVID-19 treatment questions. Therefore, the way to precision medicine in COVID-19 needs an extremely rapid pace. The aim of the present study was to discuss the most up-to-date effective drugs and vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection.