The anti-influenza virus drug, arbidol is an efficient inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

Since December 2019, a novel disease COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) rapidly spread to over 200 countries and infected over 1.50 million people including 92,798 deaths (data as of April 10, 2020). On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic, and called for accelerating diagnostics, vaccines, and drugs developments to combat this novel disease. Apart of the new coronavirus, influenza virus infections have been a consistent threat to the global public health over the years. In the United States alone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that, so far during the 2019–2020 winter season, there have been at least 39 million illnesses, 400,000 hospitalizations and 24,000 deaths from influenza ( https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm ). Considering the current concomitant circulation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus infections, the exploration of available and viable anti-influenza drugs to treat both diseases is of great interest.