Introduction: Yellow fever virus (YFV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus, endemic in 47 countries in Africa and South America, which causes febrile symptoms that can evolve in 15% of the patients to serious hemorrhagic conditions, liver injury, and multiorgan failure. Although a highly effective vaccine (YF-17D vaccine) is available, to date, no antiviral drugs have been approved for the prevention and treatment of YFV infections.
Areas covered: This review article focuses on the description of viral targets that have been considered within YFV and flavivirus drug discovery studies and on the most relevant candidates reported so far that elicit broad-spectrum inhibition against relevant strains and mutants of YFV.
Expert opinion: Considering the growing interest on (re)emerging vector-borne viral infections, it is expected that flavivirus drug discovery will quickly deliver potential candidates for clinical evaluation. Due to similarity among flaviviral targets, several candidates identified against different flaviviruses have shown broad-spectrum activity, thus exhibiting anti-YFV activity, as well. In this regard, it would be desirable to routinely include the assessment of antiviral activity against different YFV strains. On the other hand, the development of host targeting agents are still at an initial stage and deserve further focused efforts.
Keywords: Flavivirus; NS3; NS5; Yellow fever virus; antiviral drug; broad-spectrum agents; medicinal chemistry.