Antivirals against (Re)emerging Flaviviruses: Should We Target the Virus or the Host?

ACS Med Chem Lett. 2021 Dec 8;13(1):5-10. doi: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.1c00617. eCollection 2022 Jan 13.

Abstract

The COVID pandemic has evidenced how vulnerable we are to emerging infectious diseases and how short our current armamentarium is. Flavivirus, single stranded RNA viruses transmitted by arthropods, are considered a global health challenge. No drugs to treat these infections have been approved. In this Viewpoint, we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of two different, but probably also complementary, therapeutic approaches: virus-targeting antivirals and host-targeting drugs.