Recent updates in COVID-19 with emphasis on inhalation therapeutics: Nanostructured and targeting systems

Abstract

The current world health threat posed by the novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) calls for the urgent development of effective therapeutic options. COVID-19 needs daunting routes such as nano-antivirals. Hence, the role of nanotechnology is very critical in combating this nano-enemy "virus." Although substantial resources are under ongoing attention for prevention and care, we would like to start sharing with readers our vision of the role of inhaled nanomaterials and targeting systems that can play an important role in the fight against the COVID-19. In this review, we underline the genomic structure of COVID-19, recent modes of virus transmission with measures to control the infection, pathogenesis, clinical presentation of SARS-CoV-2, and how much the virus affects the lung. Additionally, the recent therapeutic approaches for managing COVID-19 with emphasis on the value of nanomaterial-based technical approaches are discussed in this review. This review also focuses on the safe and efficient delivery of usable targeted therapies using designed nanocarriers. Moreover, the effectiveness and availability of active targeting of certain specific receptors expressed on the coronavirus surfaces via tailored ligand nanoparticles are manipulated. It was also highlighted in this review the role of inhaled medicines including antivirals and repurposed drugs for fighting the associated lung disorders and efficiency of developed vaccines. Moreover, the inhalation delivery safety techniques were also highlighted.

Inhalation Delivery for the Treatment and Prevention of COVID-19 Infection

“…Thus, SARS-CoV-2 has exceeded SARS and MERS in terms of the number of infected people and the spatial range of epidemic areas [ 22 ]. Furthermore, this rapid geographic spread of COVID-19 can be explained by the fact that coronaviruses can persist on surfaces in normal environments for days, which could be the case for SARS-CoV-2 and could pose a prolonged risk of infection [ 8 ]. To highlight this point, Van Doremalen et al [ 25 ] studied the aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 compared with SARS-CoV-1 on different surfaces and evaluated their decay rates using a Bayesian regression model.…”

“…COVID-19 has a higher number of cases; however, the number of deaths are lower than in SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV [ 8 ]. Due to the similarity between the CoVs structures, specifically SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, the previous treatments for controlling the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV epidemics have provided hints for understanding SARS-CoV-2 and might be effective in treating it [ 19 , 21 ].…”

“…Today, the inhalation route is the most preferred route of administration for the treatment of many pulmonary conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, pneumonia, etc. The human lungs’ surface area is large and has a highly permeable epithelium, making it easily accessed by an inhaled dose [ 8 , 29 ]. The pulmonary route ( Figure 1 ) is considered a targeted lung delivery since it offers the administration of a drug directly to its site of action, resulting in a rapid onset of activity with smaller administered doses and higher concentrations delivered locally to the lungs’ disease site.…”

“…The ingestion of droplets into the lungs leads to lower respiratory tract infections ranging from mild respiratory infections to severe acute respiratory syndrome [ 7 ]. The most common symptoms of COVID-19 infection include fever, headache, cough, sore throat, body aches, fatigue, dyspnea, and loss of taste or smell, while severe symptoms are accompanied by systemic infection and pneumonia [ 5 , 8 ].…”

Lung Physiological Variations in COVID-19 Patients and Inhalation Therapy Development for Remodeled Lungs

“…Due to the localized high doses on the target cells only, low systemic toxicity is also expected, thus minimizing adverse side effects associated with injection/oral use. For a given dose, inhalation therapy has been shown to have substantially higher efficacy than therapies administered through other routes [8]. For instance, compared to muscle injection of the albumin-modified vaccine, inhalation therapy elicited a 25-fold boost of the memory T cells in the mouse lungs [9].…”