Till date, research has identified more than 30 therapeutic agents, including natural products, allopathic drugs and traditional Chinese medicines which could potentially be effective against COVID-19. For initial treatment of COVID-19, the People's Republic of China National Health Commission (NHC) has included antiviral agents including interferon α (IFN-α), lopinavir/ritonavir, chloroquine phosphate, ribavirin and arbidol in the revised edition of the guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of novel coronavirus-induced pneumonia. Combinations of protease inhibitor(s) lopinavir/ritonavir for the treatment of COVID-19 infected patients have been evaluated which have been used previously to treat HIV patients (Liu et al., 2020). In several animal models, including non-human primates (Fouchier et al., 2003; Kuiken et al., 2003; McAuliffe et al., 2004; Rowe et al., 2004), ferrets (Martina et al., 2003), mice (Glass et al., 2004; Hogan et al., 2004) and Syrians hamsters (Roberts et al., 2005), experimental infections with SARS-CoV have been found to cause severe respiratory tract infections.