Peng Yu, Tao Hongxun, Satyanarayanan Senthil Kumaran, Jin Kunlin, Su Huanxing
1State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Macao, China.
2Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX 76107, USA.
Aging Dis. 2021 Feb 1;12(1):155-191. doi: 10.14336/AD.2020.1124. eCollection 2021 Feb.
Currently, the world is challenged by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Epidemiologists and researchers worldwide are invariably trying to understand and combat this precarious new disease. Scrutinizing available drug options and developing potential new drugs are urgent needs to subdue this pandemic. Several intervention strategies are being considered and handled worldwide with limited success, and many drug candidates are yet in the trial phase. Despite these limitations, the development of COVID-19 treatment strategies has been accelerated to improve the clinical outcome of patients with COVID-19, and some countries have efficiently kept it under control. Recently, the use of natural and traditional medicine has also set the trend in coronavirus treatment. This review aimed to discuss the prevailing COVID-19 treatment strategies available globally by examining their efficacy, potential mechanisms, limitations, and challenges in predicting a future potential treatment candidate and bridging them with the effective traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The findings might enrich the knowledge on traditional alternative medication and its complementary role with Western medicine in managing the COVID-19 epidemic.
目前，世界正面临2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行的挑战。世界各地的流行病学家和研究人员都在努力了解并对抗这种危险的新疾病。审视现有的药物选择并开发潜在的新药是战胜这一流行病的迫切需求。全球范围内正在考虑并实施多种干预策略，但成效有限，许多候选药物仍处于试验阶段。尽管存在这些限制，COVID-19治疗策略的开发仍在加速推进，以改善COVID-19患者的临床结局，一些国家已有效地控制住了疫情。最近，天然药物和传统药物的使用也成为了冠状病毒治疗的趋势。本综述旨在通过研究全球流行的COVID-19治疗策略的疗效、潜在机制、局限性以及在预测未来潜在治疗候选药物方面的挑战，并将它们与有效的传统中药相结合，来讨论这些策略。这些发现可能会丰富关于传统替代药物的知识及其在管理COVID-19疫情中与西医的互补作用。
