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