Chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are being used to treat and prevent COVID-19 despite weak evidence for effectiveness, and physicians and patients should be aware of the drugs' potentially serious adverse events, states a review in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

A Lancaster University statistician who worked on the first published large randomised clinical trial for a potential treatment for the COVID-19 virus said the scientific community was coming together to combat the coronavirus. There are currently no specific treatments for COVID-19. However, it is possible that some existing drugs, usually used for other conditions, may have some benefits.

An international team led by University of British Columbia researcher Dr. Josef Penninger has found a trial drug that effectively blocks the cellular door SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect its hosts. The findings, published in Cell, hold promise as a treatment capable of stopping early infection of the novel coronavirus.

A collaborative study led by Monash University's Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) in Melbourne, Australia, with the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), has shown that an anti-parasitic drug already available around the world kills the virus within 48 hours.

An antibody recovered from a survivor of the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s has revealed a potential vulnerability of the new coronavirus at the root of COVID-19, according to a study from scientists at Scripps Research.

The study, published today in Science, is the first to map a human antibody's interaction with the new coronavirus at near-atomic-scale resolution.

An international team including McMaster University researchers has come together to issue guidelines for health-care workers treating intensive care unit (ICU) patients with COVID-19. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign COVID-19 panel has released 54 recommendations on such topics as infection control, laboratory diagnosis and specimens, the dynamics of blood flow support, ventilation support, and COVID-19 therapy.

Houston Methodist received FDA approval Saturday to become the first academic medical center in the nation to transfuse donated plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient into a critically ill patient. This treatment was fast-tracked to the bedside over the weekend as the death toll in the COVID-19 pandemic soared to more than 2,000 people across the United States, with more than 100,000 Americans sick from the virus.