Spera AM. Are nucleotide inhibitors, already used for treating hepatitis C virus infection, a potential option for the treatment of COVID-19 compared with standard of care? A literature review. World J Virol 2021; 10(2): 53-61 [PMID: 33816150 DOI: 10.5501/wjv.v10.i2.53]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Anna Maria Spera, MD, Doctor, Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Study of Salerno, Largo Ippocrate, Salerno 84131, Italy. annamariaspera@hotmail.it
Research Domain of This Article
Infectious Diseases
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Virol. Mar 25, 2021; 10(2): 53-61 Published online Mar 25, 2021. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v10.i2.53
Are nucleotide inhibitors, already used for treating hepatitis C virus infection, a potential option for the treatment of COVID-19 compared with standard of care? A literature review
Anna Maria Spera
Anna Maria Spera, Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Study of Salerno, Salerno 84131, Italy
Author contributions: Study conception and design, literature review, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting of manuscript and its critical revision was provided by Spera AM.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Anna Maria Spera, MD, Doctor, Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Study of Salerno, Largo Ippocrate, Salerno 84131, Italy. annamariaspera@hotmail.it
Received: December 12, 2020 Peer-review started: December 12, 2020 First decision: January 27, 2021 Revised: January 28, 2021 Accepted: March 8, 2021 Article in press: March 8, 2021 Published online: March 25, 2021 Processing time: 93 Days and 17.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Coronavirus disease 2019 represents a terrible, still unsolved, global problem affecting not only the healthcare system but also the economic and social one. All countries are facing and fighting against this pandemic but there is still no specific treatment for its eradication. Recently some nucleotide inhibitors, already approved and employed for the treatment of hepatitis c virus infection, have been repurposed for treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection, because of some common features among coronaviruses and hepatitis c virus. Herein briefly I focused on the effects of this compound on coronavirus disease 2019, based on its pharmacokinetic properties and on results of several completed clinical trials.
