With the global COVID-19 death toll surging past 20,000 people this week, accelerated efforts to develop coronavirus treatments are primarily focused on adapting existing drugs intended to fight other diseases.
“The shortest path to a treatment, we think, is to repurpose something that already exists based on our knowledge of the mechanisms of action,” Dr. Hana Akselrod, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, told VOA.