Heliyon
Volume 9, Issue 3, March 2023, e13952
Journal home page for Heliyon

Review article
An update on COVID-19: SARS-CoV-2 variants, antiviral drugs, and vaccines

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13952Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • SARS-CoV-2 is a highly contagious and pathogenic virus.

  • This study discussed the details of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

  • AntiViral drugs used against SARS-CoV-2 are briefly summarized.

  • Vaccines developed against SARS-CoV-2 are discussed.

  • This study will help the researchers to gain knowledge on SARS-CoV-2 variants, antiviral drugs, and vaccines.

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly contagious and pathogenic virus that first appeared in late December 2019. This SARS-CoV-2 causes an infection of an acute respiratory disease called “coronavirus infectious disease-2019 (COVID-19). The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this SARS-CoV-2 outbreak a great pandemic on March 11, 2020. As of January 31, 2023, SARS-CoV-2 recorded more than 67 million cases and over 6 million deaths. Recently, novel mutated variants of SARS-CoV are also creating a serious health concern worldwide, and the future novel variant is still mysterious. As infection cases of SARS-CoV-2 are increasing daily, scientists are trying to combat the disease using numerous antiviral drugs and vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review that summarized the dynamic nature of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, SARS-CoV-2 variants (a variant of concern and variant of interest), antiviral drugs and vaccines utilized against SARS-CoV-2 at a glance. Hopefully, this review will enable the researcher to gain knowledge on SARS-CoV-2 variants and vaccines, which will also pave the way to identify efficient novel vaccines against forthcoming SARS-CoV-2 strains.

Keywords

Antiviral drugs
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-2 variants
Vaccines

Abbreviations

SARS-CoV-2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
COVID-19
Coronavirus infectious disease-2019
WHO
World Health Organization
ACE2
Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2
RBD
Receptor-binding domain
VOC
Variants of Concern
VOI
Variants of Interests
FDA
Food and Drug Administration
NIH
National Institutes of Health
EUA
Emergency Use Authorization

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