Repurposing drugs targeting epidemic viruses.

For emerging and re-emerging epidemic infections, researchers face challenges to develop broad-spectrum antivirals as well as reducing development time and costs, and drug resistance. Drug repurposing is a reliable strategy for rapidly discovering potent new antiviral agents, reducing the need for clinical trials. In this review, we outline antiviral drug candidates identified using the drug repurposing approach, with their potential modes of action and biological responses against various epidemic viral infectious diseases.