Coronavirus: Scientists could repurpose drugs to treat infection.

ISLAMABAD -- New research zooms in on several antiviral drugs that scientists could repurpose to treat infections with the novel coronavirus. These drugs include teicoplanin, oritavancin, dalbavancin, monensin, and emetine. For live updates on the latest developments regarding the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, click here. According to the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently 81,109 confirmed cases of COVID-19 - a condition that develops due to infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 - around the world. Worldwide, 2,762 people have already died as a result of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There is currently no cure for this infection, meaning that physicians and health professionals cannot do much for people who have it.

Although most healthy adults can rely on their immune system to fight the infection, the lack of cure or treatment for COVID-19 is particularly worrisome for older adults and those with conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, and hypertension. In these contexts, the need for urgent treatment is dire. So, a group of European-based scientists have now reviewed a range of existing broadspectrum antiviral drugs in the hope that some of them may help treat the new virus. Denis Kainov, an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, is the senior author of the new paper. The results appear in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Why repurpose existing drugs? Kainov and colleagues reviewed and summarized the information on 119 'safe-in-man' antiviral agents, called broadspectrum antiviral agents (BSAAs). BSAAs are compounds that target viruses 'belonging to two or more viral...