A Recent Achievement in the Discovery and Development of Vaccines and Therapeutic Agents in the Race for COVID-19 Protection and Treatment

Real-world evidence with a retrospective cohort of 15,968 COVID-19 hospitalized patients suggests 21 new effective treatments

PURPOSE

Despite the extensive vaccination campaigns in many countries, COVID-19 is still a major worldwide health problem because of its associated morbidity and mortality. Therefore, finding efficient treatments as fast as possible is a pressing need. Drug repurposing constitutes a convenient alternative when the need for new drugs in an unexpected medical scenario is urgent, as is the case with COVID-19.

METHODS

Using data from a central registry of electronic health records (the Andalusian Population Health Database), the effect of prior consumption of drugs for other indications previous to the hospitalization with respect to patient outcomes, including survival and lymphocyte progression, was studied on a retrospective cohort of 15,968 individuals, comprising all COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Andalusia between January and November 2020.

RESULTS

Covariate-adjusted hazard ratios and analysis of lymphocyte progression curves support a significant association between consumption of 21 different drugs and better patient survival. Contrarily, one drug, furosemide, displayed a significant increase in patient mortality.

CONCLUSIONS

In this study we have taken advantage of the availability of a regional clinical database to study the effect of drugs, which patients were taking for other indications, on their survival. The large size of the database allowed us to control covariates effectively.

Emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as of June 2021

In December 2019, the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the resulting pandemic has caused widespread health problems and social and economic disruption. Thus far in 2021, more than 4 million people worldwide have died from COVID-19, so safe and efficacious vaccines are urgently needed to restore normal economic and social activities. According to the official guidance documents of the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccines based on four major strategies including mRNA, adenoviral vectors, inactivated viruses, and recombinant proteins have entered the stage of emergency use authorization and pre-certification evaluation. The current review summarizes these vaccines and it looks ahead to the development of additional COVID-19 vaccines in the future.