Synthetic and Herbal Drugs Registered in Clinical Trials on COVID-19: a Review on Recent Research

COVID-19 emerged as a widespread worldwide ailment in 2019, with a continued breakdown of novel gamma and lambda variants. Given the high incidence of COVID-19 even in the vaccinated people, research is in progress to develop convenient used drugs to control coronavirus disease. Herein, to review the effectiveness and safety of the recent antiviral, antibacterial, and herbal medication utilized to treat COVID-19, electronic databases including Scopus, PubMed, and Cochrane Library were compiled from papers registered in clinical trials on COVID-19 from January 2021 to February 2022. Oseltamivir, remdesivir, ivermectin, casirivimab, imdevimab, sotrovimab, Tocilizumab, sarilumab, dexamethasone, methylprednisolon, paxlovid, fluvoxamine, molnupiravir, ruxolitinib, tofacitinib, baricitinib, favipiravir, molnupiravir, azithromycin, niclosamide, nitazoxanide, and tetracyclines are the most commonly used antiviral and antibiotics to control mild to severe COVID-19 illnesses in the clinic. Despite the efficacy of drugs solely and in combination, medicinal herbs and natural products were considered in some clinical trials due to the high cost and unwanted side effects. However, no substantial evidence has been reported to confirm the significant anti-COVID-19 impact of synthetic and herbal medicines. This scenario opens an exciting new perspective for the elucidation of convenient therapeutic pipelines.