ROLE OF AMBROXOL AS A PROPHYLACTIC AGENT AGAINST COVID-19

Currently the world is facing a pandemic disease, namely Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As finding recent drugs targeting COVID-19 will take a long time, so repositioning currently existing FDA approved drugs for treating this disastrous disease is an acceptable solution. It has been found that for SARS-CoV-2 to be infective, this necessitates splitting of the viral spike glycoproteins by the serine protease “type II transmembrane serine protease TMPRSS2” that has shown to be widely expressed in pulmonary tissues. Thus, TMPRSS2 is suggested to be potential target for antiviral drug design against COVID-19. The mucokinetic drug “Ambroxol” has been reported as a potent inhibitor of TMPRSS2, thus it could represent a therapeutic as well as a prophylactic candidate against SARS-CoV2. This review gives a brief summary about ambroxol’s potential role against COVID-19’s TMPRSS2. Peer Review History: Received 8 January 2021; Revised 5 February; Accepted 25 February, Available online 15 March 2021 UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 5.5/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10 Reviewer(s) detail: Dr. Nuray Arı, Ankara University, Turkiye, ari@ankara.edu.tr Prof. Cyprian Ogbonna ONYEJI, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, conyeji@oauife.edu.ng Dr. Asia Selman Abdullah, Al-Razi universi