An update on COVID-19: SARS-CoV-2 variants, antiviral drugs, and vaccines

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly contagious and pathogenic virus that first appeared in late December 2019. This SARS-CoV-2 causes an infection of an acute respiratory disease called “coronavirus infectious disease-2019 (COVID-19). The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this SARS-CoV-2 outbreak a great pandemic on March 11, 2020. As of January 31, 2023, SARS-CoV-2 recorded more than 67 million cases and over 6 million deaths. Recently, novel mutated variants of SARS-CoV are also creating a serious health concern worldwide, and the future novel variant is still mysterious. As infection cases of SARS-CoV-2 are increasing daily, scientists are trying to combat the disease using numerous antiviral drugs and vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review that summarized the dynamic nature of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, SARS-CoV-2 variants (a variant of concern and variant of interest), antiviral drugs and vaccines utilized against SARS-CoV-2 at a glance. Hopefully, this review will enable the researcher to gain knowledge on SARS-CoV-2 variants and vaccines, which will also pave the way to identify efficient novel vaccines against forthcoming SARS-CoV-2 strains.