Novel therapeutic approaches toward Hantaan virus and its clinical features’ similarity with COVID-19

Zoonotic virus spill over in human community has been an intensive area of viral pathogenesis and the outbreak of Hantaan virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV2) after late December 2019 caused a global threat. Hantaan virus is second to the COVID-19 outbreak in China with seven cases positive and one death. Both RNA viruses have opposite sense as in (−) for Hantaan virus and (+) for SARS CoV2 but have similarity in the pathogenesis and relevant clinical features including dry cough, high fever, shortness of breath, and SARS associated with pneumonia and certain reported cases with multiple organ failure. Although COVID-19 has global impact with high death toll, Hantaan virus has varyingly high mortality rate between 1% and 40%. Hence, there is a need to explore novel therapeutic targets in Hantaan virus due to its rapid evolution rate in its genetic makeup which governs virulence and target host cells. This review emphasizes the importance of structural and nonstructural proteins of Hantaan virus with relevant insight from SARS CoV2. The envelope glycoproteins such as Gn, Gc, and nucleocapsid protein (N) direct the viral assembly and replication in host cells. Therapeutic treatment has similarity in using ribavirin and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation but lack of efficacious treatment in both cases of SARAS CoV2 and Hantaan virus. Therefore, potential features regarding therapeutic targets for drug discovery for Hantaan viruses are discussed herewith. The conclusive description highlights that N protein is substantially involved in evoking immune response and induces symptoms and could be precursive target for drug discovery studies.