Researchers in South Korea say a type of corticosteroid used to treat asthma could be effective in the treatment of the new coronavirus.

Institut Pasteur Korea on Monday said it confirmed the anti-viral effectiveness of the asthma drug Ciclesonide, better known by the brand name Alvesco, in treating COVID-19 during a drug repositioning study.

The research institute finalized a list of 20 drugs with anti-viral effectiveness while testing some three-thousand on infected cells, including one-thousand-500 approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA).

The 20 compounds' levels of anti-viral activation were similar to those of remdesivir, developed to treat the Ebola virus, the HIV drug Kaletra and Chloroquine, which is used to treat malaria and is currently under clinical trial.

While the researchers concluded that Ciclesonide would be the most feasible drug after considering its safety, effectiveness and domestic availability in the cell-based study, further research would be required.