Clinical Trials Approaching Antiviral Agents Use Against SARS-CoV-2: Reliable Studies or Drug’s Cemetery?

Abstract

The emergence of COVID-19 led to the development of various vaccines at an unprecedented rate. Due to massive vaccination, the pandemic has started to change, reducing the cases and deaths re-lated to COVID-19. Despite the massive contribution of vaccines, drugs, such as antivirals, are still essential in the containment of severe cases and deaths from COVID-19. However, this same ra-pidity in vaccine development was not observed in the antiviral agents’ discovery against SARS-CoV-2. Studies showed that viral load from upper respiratory tract spec-imen swabs in COVID-19 seems to decline during the first week of infection, extending the decline to the end of the second week, and may extend until the end of the third week. 1,2 Nevertheless, suc-cessfully cultivating SARS-CoV-2 occurs between the first and the fifth days of symptom onset and peaks on the third day. 1 Although a study has found a cultivable virus in 9%