Protease Inhibitor Use in COVID-19

The outbreak of a large plaque, novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP), which also named Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by the WHO, has detrimentally affected the livelihood and health of people in China. During the spread of COVID-19, colleagues who have been working at the frontline have had to face many new challenges in the treatment and prevention of NCP. Therefore, we have provided suggestions for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of the novel coronavirus pneumonia in the current epidemic situation based on the latest reports and the experience of doctors treating COVID-19 in our hospital. We recommend lopinavir/ritonavir as the effective drugs for antiviral treatment according to our experience in administering lopinavir/ritonavir to COVID-19 patients and the successful cases of these drugs in treating MERS and SARS, but need more clinical data to prove their efficacy in treating COVID-19.