Remdesivir and Dexamethasone: The Two Eligible Candidate Drugs Against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection

Abstract

Lots of research based on drug designing as well as in silico study, cell culture/animal model study, and the clinical trials are being conducted perceive the suitable therapeutic drugs and to develop vaccines in order to alleviate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Although there are still no vaccines, some potential antiviral drugs have been repurposed including remdesivir, chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine, ribavirin, favipiravir, cepharanthine, and lopinavir/ritonavir, of which remdesivir has been mostly accepted for the treatment purpose because of its multitarget actions. Besides, the immunosuppressive agent, dexamethasone, evolved with the capacity to protect the severely affected COVID-19 patients from death to some extent. The current review, thus, emphasized on both remdesivir and dexamethasone as the successful remedies for the ongoing pandemic and detected the possible mode of action of dexamethasone.

Keywords

• antiviral drugs
• covid-19 pandemic
• dexamethasone
• remdesivir