Reposicionamento de fármacos como estratégia no tratamento da COVID-19: uma ênfase em antivirais análogos de nucleosídeos/nucleotídeos

Abstract

In December 2019, a new strain of coronavirus was identified. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome, being popularly known as COVID-19. COVID-19 has spread throughout the world, being declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization. This disease has already decimated about 5.22 million of the world's population. As it is a new virus, there is still no effective treatment. A generally faster strategy is the repositioning of drugs that have already been approved by competent agencies to treat other diseases, which may, after clinical studies, be indicated to treat the symptoms caused by SARS-CoV-2. The drugs used in these treatments, depending on the stage of the disease, whether effective or not to some degree, were galidesivir, remdesivir, favipiravir, sofosbuvir, tenofovir and ribavirin. It can highlight remdesivir, favipiravir and galidesivir because of their promising tests. This review focused on the last five drugs mentioned, which are nucle-oside/nucleotide analogues. A literature review was carried out with data collection on repo-sitioned drugs according to their effectiveness in the treatment of coronavirus. Thus, we pre-sent an overview of the existing drugs that are being or have been used to reduce the effects of COVID-19. With a view to developing a new specific drug to treat the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.