COVID‐19: Emergence of Infectious Diseases, Nanotechnology Aspects, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Wuhan, a city of China, is the epicenter for the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). It has become a severe public health challenge to the world and established a public health emergency of international worry. This infectious disease has pulled down the economy of almost all top developed nations. The coronaviruses (CoVs) known for various epidemics caused time to time. Infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS), followed by COVID-19, are all coronaviruses led outbreaks that scourged the history of mankind. CoVs evolved themselves to more infectious, transmissible, and more pandemic with time. To prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2, many countries have ordered the complete lockdown to combat the outbreak. This paper briefly discussed the historical background of CoVs and the evolution of human coronaviruses (HCoVs), the case studies and the development of their antiviral medications. The viral infection encountered with present-day challenges and futuristic approaches with the help of nanotechnology to minimize the spread of infectious viruses. The antiviral drugs and their clinical advances, along with herbal medicines for viral inhibition and immunity boosters, are described. Elaboration of tables related to CoVs for the compilation of the literature has been adopted for the better understanding.

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“…In this regard, strengthening the immune system can be an important factor in reducing the mortality of viral diseases, which may be combined with herbal drugs. The latter can be produced from various parts of plants such as seeds, barks, flowers, roots, stems, and fruits for immunomodulating and strengthening the immune system [109] , [110] . Moreover, the alkaloids, flavonoids and polyphenol exist in some plants such as garlic, peppermint, oregano, ginger, licorice, tulsi, turmeric, echinacea, astragalus, and fennel can cause the release of antibodies and interferons toward viral infections [109] .…”

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“…Hence, it could be useful to design nanomedicine-based strategies as novel antigens for nanovaccines, antiviral drugs, and immunomodulatory therapies for COVID-19 management. [9] If a nanomaterial can be modified with specific antiviral ligands (e.g., copper, zinc, silver (Ag)), these nanoantivirals could benefit COVID-19 management. [10] Besides, nanoparticle-based antiviral drug delivery with high specificity can benefit the distinguishment of infected cells from healthy cells.…”

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“…have always been a matter of great concern to the human health. Researchers, pharmaceutical companies and Medicare industry at large have always been addressing such problems by taking out suitable antiviral medicaments and vaccine that may be used for selective and sensitive detection of the viral loads [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] ].…”