Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a chief concern of the international community. As of May 2021, more than 150 million cases and 3.2 million deaths have been recorded. Considering the early struggle in treating COVID-19 patients, the researchers and clinicians have decided to try the previously available drugs according to their mechanisms of action. This article aims to review the potential drugs for COVID-19 patients during pregnancy and breastfeeding and their safety. PubMed and Scopus databases and Google Scholar engine were searched with the proper combination of the free keywords and MeSH Terms of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Treatment, Pharmacotherapy, Drug Therapy, and Drug Safety. All relevant clinical studies published until the end of 2020 were included in this review. Many antivirals, antibiotics, antiparasitics, and antipyretics have been proposed, but most of them are not registered for COVID-19 or have demonstrated little effect on the disease. Since there is still a long way to find an effective drug for the treatment of COVID-19, prevention is currently the most effective way. Also, prescribing drugs to these two groups of patients should be done according to the safety recommendations.
Highlights
On January 7th, 2020, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) identified a new coronavirus, later called the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by World Health Organization (WHO) (1)
Besides the general considerations regarding the drug-to-drug interactions, as the pregnant and infants are among the most vulnerable groups, and the behavior of the virus among pregnant women and infants is still ambiguous (3), we aim to review the safety of using the repurposed medications during the pregnancy and breastfeeding in this study
During this review, PubMed and Scopus databases and Google Scholar engine were searched with the free keywords and MeSH Terms of COVID-19, SARSCoV-2, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Treatment, Pharmacotherapy, Drug Therapy, and Drug Safety, for articles published until the end of 2020
Summary
On January 7th, 2020, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) identified a new coronavirus, later called the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by World Health Organization (WHO) (1). Clinicians and researchers worldwide attempted to find effective drugs to treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but no drug was approved as a definitive treatment. In this situation, left with no other choice than to use the formerly used drugs, most current clinical approaches consist of repurposing the previously available drugs that are expected to act as potential anti-COVID-19 agents, based on their underlying mechanisms of action. Besides the general considerations regarding the drug-to-drug interactions, as the pregnant and infants are among the most vulnerable groups, and the behavior of the virus among pregnant women and infants is still ambiguous (3), we aim to review the safety of using the repurposed medications during the pregnancy and breastfeeding in this study
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