Advancements in research and development to combat COVID-19 using nanotechnology

The whole world is currently facing a global health crisis due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused by SARS coronavirus 2, which started in Wuhan City, China, in December 2019. The pandemic has affected 235 countries, areas or territories and infected over 42 million people across the globe as per WHO update on 27 October 2020. More than 1.1 million people have died and the numbers are increasing daily. However, some drugs have been authorized for emergency treatment of patients, medication and vaccines with proven efficacy to prevent and treat the disease is still under various phases of development. The entire world is consistently making efforts to address three major challenges related to COVID-19 including prevention of its spread, prompt and early diagnosis and treatment of patients to save lives. Touted as one of the game-changing technologies of the century, nanotechnology has huge potential to develop solutions against these three major challenges of the disease. Nanotechnology comprises of multidisciplinary prospects encompassing diverse disciplines including medicine, material science, artificial intelligence, environment, virology, physical sciences, chemistry and biology. The numerous challenges can be addressed through the engineering of the various physicochemical properties of materials presents in abundance in nature. Various claims, studies and reports on research and development to combat these challenges associated with COVID-19 have been collectively discussed in this article from the perspectives of nanotechnology.