What lessons learned from the previous SARS-CoV and
MERS-CoV viruses have proven useful to identify therapeutic targets for
COVID-19?
These zoonotic beta-coronaviruses share structural and genomic
similarities that are useful to understand COVID-19. SARS-CoV and
MERS-CoV have lower transmission rate, shorter incubation time and
higher fatality rates than SARS-CoV-2. In all of them, the spike protein
plays a key role in infection via ACE2-binding, hence it is a clear
therapeutic target. Potential treatments already used for SARS-CoV and
MERS-CoV include remdesivir, chloroquine, tocilizumab and CP, among
others. However, none of them have been tested in robust clinical trials(see below section 8 ). Lessons in epidemiological surveillance
and isolation measures have also proven useful.177