Advances in Anti-Influenza Drug Discovery and Treatment
A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Viral Immunology, Vaccines, and Antivirals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 316
Special Issue Editors
Interests: antiviral activity; screening; natural resources; bacterial extracts; fungal extracts; antimicrobial peptides; toxins
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Influenza is a serious and often underestimated disease that causes a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations, ranging from a self-limited febrile illness with respiratory symptoms to severe disease with complications leading to hospitalization and death. Globally, seasonal influenza is estimated to be responsible for up to 1 billion infections, 3–5 million severe cases, and 300,000–650,000 death each year. Unlike seasonal outbreaks, pandemic influenza is characterized by the introduction of new strains. Due to the lack of immunity, these pandemic strains are often associated with increased severity and mortality. The most severe pandemic, known as Spanish flu, resulted in more than 40 million deaths worldwide.
Prophylactic vaccination offers the best protections. However, vaccine efficacy varies between 40% and 60% and may be even lower with greater antigenic differences between the vaccine and circulating strain.
Therefore, antivirals are urgently needed to manage unexpected circulating strains and treat severely ill patients. To date, five classes of antivirals have been approved for influenza. The M2 proton channel inhibitors, amantadine and rimantadine, were the first drugs on the market. However, due to a widespread resistance among circulating influenza A viruses, they are no longer recommended for treatment. Therefore, neuraminidase inhibitors such as oseltamivir remain the only antiviral compounds with wide clinical use. Resistance to these compounds has been observed but remained on low levels, so far. In Russia and China, the broad-spectrum antiviral umifenovir, which inhibits fusion, is also licensed to treat influenza infections. Recently, the nucleoside analogue favipiravir was approved in Japan, and the inhibitor of the endonuclease activity of the polymerase acidic protein baloxavir marboxil was just approved in both Japan and the USA. Additional candidates, for example, targeting the virus glycoprotein hemagglutinin or the polymerase complex are in the clinical pipeline.
This Special Issue, titled “Advances in Anti-Influenza Drug Discovery and Treatment”, will be devoted to the development of new treatment options against influenza infections and the identification of novel therapeutic targets. To gain a comprehensive insight into progress and research, the journal Viruses invites experts in the field to contribute research articles or reviews.
Dr. Kornelia Hardes
Dr. Volker Czudai-Matwich
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- influenza virus
- anti-influenza agents
- drug discovery
- clinical studies
- identification of novel targets
