Will the antimalarial drug take over to combat COVID-19?

Abstract

Background: China has been fighting the epidemic of pneumonia-like diseases first detected for over a month in the city of Wuhan in December 2019. The disease epidemic is caused by a novel coronavirus, called COVID-19, which has now infected more than 700,000 people worldwide. With a death toll approaching that of China’s SARS-CoV outbreak in 2002 and 2003, 2019-nCoV has contributed to an international emergency in public health, placing all health organizations on high alert. Such large numbers of infected and deceased people require an urgent need for reliable, inexpensive, and cheap drugs to control and reduce the outbreak. Objective: To systematically review and evaluate the pattern of COVID-19 and the treatment plans. Methods: This systematic review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The articles were searched from databases like PubMed, the Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, and the Health Research and Development Information Network (HERDIN) combining MeSH and free-text terms. Results: This analysis highlights the agent of COVID-19 and the possible transmission. The current research taking place to overcome this complex disease and the urgent need to develop improved therapeutics are also discussed. Conclusion: Herein, we present an epidemiological overview of the currently available information on the treatment claimed to have helped to bring the situation under control.