ABSTRACT
The World Health Organization (WHO) avowed the pandemic spread of the viral disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), on December 31, 2019, which was evinced for the first time in Hubei Province, China. COVID-19 links up with the most threatening respiratory syndrome cadre severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) apace with the highly infectious Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Since its nascence, the year 2021 has chronicled the worst outbreak with 25.3 million proclaimed cases in December and 420,000 deaths in January globally. The only break in the cloud is a fall in the spiking death rate juxtaposed to the infected cases. SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has created a tremendous socioeconomic burden on the human race in 216 countries with a major challenge to healthcare professionals in viral attenuation, because it is not vulnerable to the existing antiviral therapies, which include immunomodulators, nucleosides, protease inhibitors, and drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and favipiravir. Despite the meticulous effort taken to produce specific drugs and vaccines, exploiting non-conventional therapy has become necessary, opening the gateway for nanomaterials in slowing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with its multifaceted and non-toxic features. Nanomaterials, with unique features such as increased surface-to-volume ratio, optical properties, and drug delivery ability, have the propensity to destroy or arrest the growth of distinctive groups of viruses and provoke the immune response in patients. In this regard, in this chapter, we have discussed our perspective on the antiviral opportunity of nanomaterials in terms of treatment and diagnosis against COVID-19, which would square up the global threat.
