Project 458246

The COVID-19 global health crisis has altered the socioeconomic and financial wellbeing of many nations. To rapidly address this problem, scientists began developing vaccines and drugs for the prevention and treatment of the disease. Although vaccines are now available, their ability to provide full protection from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2) and its variants is limited. This can be attributed to the evasion of the body's post-vaccination defence mechanism by some variants of SARS-COV-2, the liability of the upper respiratory tract to viral infection, and the inability to reach herd immunity because of anti-vaxxers and limited access to vaccines in low-income countries. Therefore, a combination of effective viral eradicating drugs and vaccines is essential for reducing the mortality and morbidity associated with COVID-19. Repurposing pre-existing drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 is an efficient and economical strategy for addressing the unmet medical need of COVID-19. However, there are currently no clinically effective viral eradicating drugs for the disease. The failure of some of these repurposed drugs does not necessarily translate to ineffective viral eradicating ability. If the viral eradicating ability of these repurposed drugs approved for other pathogens differs for SARS-COV-2 and/or its variants, then applying a similar dosing regimen will limit their clinical efficacy and/or safety profile for the treatment of COVID-19. The overall goal of this research is to conduct preclinical studies that will identify intrinsic factors that could limit the inherent therapeutic potential of these repurposed COVID-19 drugs and utilize the obtained data to predict the optimum clinical dosing regimen that will eradicate the virus in disease target sites such as the lungs and brain. The outcome of this study will inform the development of repurposed COVID-19 drugs that will allow optimum viral eradication at disease target sites.