Probiotic Therapy: Critical Review of Its Implications in Fighting COVID19 And Future Perspectives

Abstract

In order to fight SarsCOV2 immense global grim impact and for surviving its aftereffect, search for specific effacious treatment regime is the urgent need of the hour. At this juncture, combinatorial therapeutic strategy alongside conventional treatment protocol by manipulating gut microbiota through probiotics is currently gaining considerable acceptance. The rationale of the probiotic-based therapeutic strategy is to combat pathogens in human gastrointestinal tract by use of non-pathogenic microbes, instead of synthetic drug administration. Furthermore, the concept of probiotic therapy is particularly advocated with a view to check expanding menace of multidrug resistance phenomenon. Presently, increasing number of scientific reports on complex, multifaceted interactions between human gut microbiome and the host infected with SARS COV 2 [1,2], further bolstered the concept of application of probiotics as a potential therapeutic candidate. However, views of the scientific community contradict regarding efficacy of probiotic mediated covid therapy. In a very recent report [3] Mak and Chan uphold their notion against the use of conventional probiotics to combat COVID 19. Therefore, this review probes into the scientific investigations conducted on the debated issue of applicability and aptness of probiotics administration in treating COVID19 patients. In the light of the outcomes of scientific literature reviewed here, we endorse the fact that use of probiotics has considerably alleviated some of the symptoms of COVID 19 patients and its implementation in near future should be urgently considered in developing a complimentary therapeutic strategy, strictly following the principles of evidence-based therapeutics as well as validation through clinical trials.