Convalescent plasma therapy for coronavirus infection: experience from MERS and application in COVID-19

Developments in treatment for middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

INTRODUCTION

An important respiratory pathogen that has led to multiple hospital outbreaks both inside and outside of the Arabian Peninsula is the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Given the elevated case fatality rate, there exists a pressing requirement for efficacious therapeutic agents.

AREAS COVERED

This is an updated review of the developments in MERS treatment approaches. Using databases like PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Scopus, and Google Scholar, a thorough search was carried out utilizing keywords like 'MERS,' 'MERS-CoV,' and 'Middle East respiratory syndrome' in conjunction with 'treatment' or 'therapy' from Jan 2012 to Feb 2024.

EXPERT OPINION

MERS-CoV is a highly pathogenic respiratory infection that emerged in 2012 and continues to pose a significant public health threat. Despite ongoing efforts to control the spread of MERS-CoV, there is currently no specific antiviral treatment available. While many agents have been tested both in vivo and in vitro, none of them have been thoroughly examined in extensive clinical trials. Only case reports, case series, or cohort studies have been made available as clinical studies. However, there is a limited number of randomized-controlled trials. Because cases are irregular and sporadic, conducting a large prospective randomized trials for establishing an efficacious treatment might be difficult.

A Review on Effectiveness of Plasma Therapy in Severe COVID-19 Patients

Coronavirus 2019 has created a big threat to the modern world. Many researchers and scientists had taken the burden of finding information about this entity, its structure, its transmission, and also about the treatment that can be given to individuals infected by it. There has been use of different medicines at different times simultaneously researching about them, starting with only symptomatic and supportive treatment, then antimalarial agents like chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, then going to favipavir, and other antivirals, then came the use of vaccines and also convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19. The most advanced is convalescent plasma use for the treating coronavirus. Using plasma of patients who have remitted from this disease and putting it into those individuals who are dealing with the disease or are critically ill for improvement of their health status. This treatment has been used for many other diseases too and has been proven efficacious. So, this technique is being used and studied for coronavirus 2019 as well. There have been set certain criteria for those who can donate plasma and also criteria for the recipients of this technique. Also, there can be adverse reactions or even side effects with this, like transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), so they should also be kept in mind during treatment with this method. So, though there are many methods to date to treat these individuals but one of the latest ones is using plasma, which is proven to be efficacious but still many studies are under process for the same.

Current challenges in different approaches to control COVID-19: a comprehensive review

BACKGROUND

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a global health emergency on January 30, 2020, and as a pandemic disease on March 11, 2020. This review highlights the international situation, risk factors, and related protections to be taken as prerequisite measures and probable treatment options for the COVID-19-infected population in the current scenario.

MAIN TEXT

The SARS-CoV-2 viruses and their variants caused mild-to-severe respiratory tract infection and used airborne pathways as a way of contagion. Human-to-human transmission led to an exponential growth in the rise in the number of cases making it a real burden to immobilize the rapid spread of the virus while asymptomatic patients created ambiguity for confirmation in the community. It was clear from the case studies of patients that most of them were asymptomatic but still vulnerable to the people around, and hence, in a flash, many countries around the globe went into a complete lockdown, influencing the economy and thrashing industrial outputs. On the other hand, numerous researches were made to counteract the spread through studies in antiviral therapy, immune-based therapy, vaccination development, and natural remedies.

CONCLUSION

Although exploration for a specific drug required for the COVID-19 treatment is under extensive research worldwide and some of them are in clinical trial now. Virtual drug library screening is one of the current techniques for repurposing accessible compounds. This review could provide beneficial information about the potential current and future treatment strategies to treat the pandemic COVID-19 infection.

Potential therapeutic agents to COVID-19: An update review on antiviral therapy, immunotherapy, and cell therapy

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2020 and coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) was later announced as pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, several studies have been conducted on the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 by potential vaccines and drugs. Although, the governments and global population have been attracted by some vaccine production projects, the presence of SARS-CoV-2-specific antiviral drugs would be an urge necessity in parallel with the efficient preventive vaccines. Various nonspecific drugs produced previously against other bacterial, viral, and parasite infections were recently evaluated for treating patients with COVID-19. In addition to therapeutic properties of these anti-COVID-19 compounds, some adverse effects were observed in different human organs as well. Not only several attentions were paid to antiviral therapy and treatment of COVID-19, but also nanomedicine, immunotherapy, and cell therapy were conducted against this viral infection. In this review study, we planned to introduce the present and potential future treatment strategies against COVID-19 and define the advantages and disadvantages of each treatment strategy.

The role and uses of antibodies in COVID-19 infections: a living review

Coronavirus disease 2019 has generated a rapidly evolving field of research, with the global scientific community striving for solutions to the current pandemic. Characterizing humoral responses towards SARS-CoV-2, as well as closely related strains, will help determine whether antibodies are central to infection control, and aid the design of therapeutics and vaccine candidates. This review outlines the major aspects of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody research to date, with a focus on the various prophylactic and therapeutic uses of antibodies to alleviate disease in addition to the potential of cross-reactive therapies and the implications of long-term immunity.