Abstract: Respiratory viruses pose a great threat to human life and health, which are characterized by strong infectivity, fast transmission and proneness to large-scale transmission. In clinical practice, more than 90% of acute upper respiratory tract infections are caused by viral infections. When a virus invades the human body, it causes upper respiratory tract symptoms such as cold, runny nose and sore throat before inducing lower respiratory tract symptoms such as bronchitis and pneumonia, which can lead to death in serious cases. The recent years have witnessed the outbreak of SARS, influenza virus, H1N1, avian influenza to COVID-19, making viral infections frequent. Seasonal and pandemic viral infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, which brings about huge economic losses to people. While vaccination can effectively prevent a pandemic, vaccines take time to be updated because respiratory viruses are prone to mutation. Drug therapy is the main means to contain the spread of respiratory viruses. In this paper, the achievements in anti-respiratory viruses are expounded from different perspectives, which is expected to provide reference for effective prevention and treatment of respiratory viruses.

Key words: respiratory virus, disease prevention and control, anti-influenza drugs, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), western medicine, biological medicine