Statins: Could an old friend help in the fight against COVID-19?
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Rodrigues-Diez RR
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7323198 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic outbreak in 2019 resulted in the need to search for an effective and safe strategy for treating infected patients, relieving symptoms, and preventing severe disease. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus that can cause acute respiratory failure and thrombosis, as well as impair circulatory system function. Permanent damage to the heart muscle or other cardiovascular disorders may occur during or after the infection. The severe course of the disease is associated with the release of large amounts of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Due to their documented anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiviral effects, reactive sulfur compounds, including hydrogen sulfide (H2S), lipoic acid (LA), N-acetylcysteine (NAC), glutathione (GSH), and some other lesser-known sulfur compounds, have attracted the interest of scientists for the treatment and prevention of the adverse effects of diseases caused by SARS-CoV-2. This article reviews current knowledge about various endogenous or exogenous reactive sulfur compounds and discusses the possibility, or in some cases the results, of their use in the treatment or prophylaxis of COVID-19.
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Project description:BackgroundIn December 2019, COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan, China, leading to national and international disruptions in health care, business, education, transportation, and nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been leveraged amid the COVID-19 pandemic; however, little is known about its use for supporting public health efforts.ObjectiveThis scoping review aims to explore how AI technology is being used during the COVID-19 pandemic, as reported in the literature. Thus, it is the first review that describes and summarizes features of the identified AI techniques and data sets used for their development and validation.MethodsA scoping review was conducted following the guidelines of PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews). We searched the most commonly used electronic databases (eg, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycInfo) between April 10 and 12, 2020. These terms were selected based on the target intervention (ie, AI) and the target disease (ie, COVID-19). Two reviewers independently conducted study selection and data extraction. A narrative approach was used to synthesize the extracted data.ResultsWe considered 82 studies out of the 435 retrieved studies. The most common use of AI was diagnosing COVID-19 cases based on various indicators. AI was also employed in drug and vaccine discovery or repurposing and for assessing their safety. Further, the included studies used AI for forecasting the epidemic development of COVID-19 and predicting its potential hosts and reservoirs. Researchers used AI for patient outcome-related tasks such as assessing the severity of COVID-19, predicting mortality risk, its associated factors, and the length of hospital stay. AI was used for infodemiology to raise awareness to use water, sanitation, and hygiene. The most prominent AI technique used was convolutional neural network, followed by support vector machine.ConclusionsThe included studies showed that AI has the potential to fight against COVID-19. However, many of the proposed methods are not yet clinically accepted. Thus, the most rewarding research will be on methods promising value beyond COVID-19. More efforts are needed for developing standardized reporting protocols or guidelines for studies on AI.
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Project description:Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has developed as a pandemic, and it created an outrageous effect on the current healthcare and economic system throughout the globe. To date, there is no appropriate therapeutics or vaccines against the disease. The entire human race is eagerly waiting for the development of new therapeutics or vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Efforts are being taken to develop vaccines at a rapid rate for fighting against the ongoing pandemic situation. Amongst the various vaccines under consideration, some are either in the preclinical stage or in the clinical stages of development (phase-I, -II, and -III). Even, phase-III trials are being conducted for some repurposed vaccines like Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, polio vaccine, and measles-mumps-rubella. We have highlighted the ongoing clinical trial landscape of the COVID-19 as well as repurposed vaccines. An insight into the current status of the available antigenic epitopes for SARS-CoV-2 and different types of vaccine platforms of COVID-19 vaccines has been discussed. These vaccines are highlighted throughout the world by different news agencies. Moreover, ongoing clinical trials for repurposed vaccines for COVID-19 and critical factors associated with the development of COVID-19 vaccines have also been described.
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