The world’s community is fully involved in the coronavirus pandemic. It is affecting hundreds of countries, and more deaths are reported each day. For now, there are no efficient medications against COVID-19 available, antibiotics or other medicine used against known viral infections are not sufficient either. While scientists are working hard on creating a vaccine, the virus continues to spread and affect more people. The purpose of this paper is to review the most recent news on scientists’ attempts at testing various possible treatments while a vaccine is not an available option.
Convalescent Plasma Therapy Against COVID-19
Convalescent plasma therapy is now a major topic of debate for scientists. The procedure’s name comes from the term convalescent plasma, which is the blood of people who have already recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies to the disease. On August 23, 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration released an emergency use authorization on convalescent plasma for patients with COVID-19 (United States Food and Drug Administration, 2020). Thus, scientists hope that giving people with COVID-19 doses of convalescent plasma can boost their ability to fight the virus.
Even though the news sound promising, many are concerned that there were no necessary robust clinical trials with placebo controls that would prove convalescent plasma therapy’s efficiency. Experts worry that issuing an emergency use authorization of an unproven therapy may interfere with more promising treatments (Lambert & Saey, 2020). Scientists lack the randomized controlled trial data to estimate the real benefits of convalescent plasma therapy. Thus, while this therapy might as well help some hospitalized patients, the actual effects of it are not proven, and doctors cannot guarantee positive outcomes.
COVID-19 Early Stages Treatments
Right now, scientists are looking for ways to use existing drugs to fight coronavirus in the early stages of infection. Unfortunately, none of them are proved to work yet, but there are some promising treatments that could give positive results by blocking the virus either from entering the cells or from multiplying (Saey, 2020). Speaking of the first option, it can be done with a drug called camostatmesylate. It stops the TMPRSS2 enzyme from allowing the virus to drop its genetic material inside the cell and start multiplying. Experts think that camostatmesylate will work best if given to the patient at an early infection stage. The clinical trial already started in Denmark, and soon another one will take place at Yale School of Medicine.
In case the virus has already entered the cells, several drugs can block the further process of multiplying. One of them is remdesivir that is given to hospitalized patients (Saey, 2020). Moreover, now the inhaled form exists as a preventative treatment for people newly diagnosed with COVID-19. However, remdesivir is challenging to make, and supplies are short, so scientists are developing other drugs for the purpose. Such drugs are favipiravir and EIDD-2801, which work the same as remdesivir but are easily taken in the form of pills.
Conclusion
To sum up, the scientific community faces many challenges trying to figure out ways of treating COVID-19 without an available vaccine. The solution may lie in convalescent plasma therapy, introducing such drugs as camostatmesylate, remdesivir, or favipiravir. However, more trials are needed to ensure its efficiency. Whether the treatments under development are newly created or emerging from existing ones available, experts are working hard on proving their efficiency and safety to help the world cope with the pandemic of 2020.
References
United States Food and Drug Administration. (2020). FDA Issues Emergency Use Authorization for Convalescent Plasma as Potential Promising COVID–19 Treatment, Another Achievement in Administration’s Fight Against Pandemic. Web.
Lambert, J., & Saey, T. H. (2020). COVID-19 plasma treatments may be safe, but we don’t know if they work. Science News. Web.
Saey, T. H. (2020). New treatments aim to treat COVID-19 early, before it gets serious. Science News. Web.