Drug Repurposing: An Effective Strategy to Discover Treatments for MPOX

A veterinary illness called monkeypox is primarily spread by coming into intimate contact with the skin lesions, body fluids, and active vesicles of infected people. Prior to the conclusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, monkeypox is causing fresh concerns worldwide. There are at least five human pathogenic OPXVs (hpOPXVs), the two most hazardous of which are the smallpox and monkeypox viruses. Effective treatments for monkeypox infections do not exist. Monkeypox levels have significantly increased over the last ten years, which is associated with a decrease in smallpox immunity in the herd. Although the smallpox vaccine was 85% successful in preventing monkeypox, it was no longer regularly available since smallpox had been eradicated worldwide. Finding new indications for current medications is referred to as drug repurposing. The shift from conventional drug discovery to drug repurposing is being driven by the fact that the supply of new drugs is dwindling due to rising R&D costs, long development lead times for new drugs, low success rate of new drugs, regulatory hurdles, lost patent revenue, and competition from generics. The recent outbreak is connected to fresh, unidentified, copied and altered. The only drug currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat the smallpox virus is tecovirimat. However, research and pharmacopoeial interest in monkeypox is modest. This study explored the potential reuse of some drugs already approved by the FDA or other regulatory agencies for use in various applications using molecular dynamics and virtual screening.