Investigational drugs for the COVID 19 pandemic - A concise review

Abstract

The present year saw the emergence of a pandemic Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (COVID 19). The unpreparedness for the pandemic and lack of drugs/vaccine against this virus has led to a high mortality rate across the world. In the process, a number of drugs have been tried against the corona virus including antivirals like remdesivir, lopinavir-ritonavir, and favipiravir, monoclonal antibodies like tocilizumab and sarilumab and antimalarial drugs like chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. At the present time, none of these drugs have reported efficacy against the virus. Here we present a review of all these drugs, their proposed mechanism of action against the corona virus and their status in clinical trials.