Abstract A novel coronavirus infection coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged from Wuhan, Hubei Province of China, in December 2019 caused by SARS-CoV-2 is believed to be originated from bats in the local wet markets. Later, animal to human and human-to-human transmission of the virus began and resulting in widespread respiratory illness worldwide to around more than 180 countries. The World Health Organization declared this disease as a pandemic in March 2020. There is no clinically approved antiviral drug or vaccine available to be used against COVID-19. Nevertheless, few broad-spectrum antiviral drugs have been studied against COVID-19 in clinical trials with clinical recovery. In the current review, we summarize the morphology and pathogenesis of COVID-19 infection. A strong rational groundwork was made keeping the focus on current development of therapeutic agents and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2. Among the proposed therapeutic regimen, hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, remdisevir, azithromycin, toclizumab and cromostat mesylate have shown promising results, and limited benefit was seen with lopinavir–ritonavir treatment in hospitalized adult patients with severe COVID-19. Early development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine started based on the full-length genome analysis of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. Several subunit vaccines, peptides, nucleic acids, plant-derived, recombinant vaccines are under pipeline. This article concludes and highlights ongoing advances in drug repurposing, therapeutics and vaccines to counter COVID-19, which collectively could enable efforts to halt the pandemic virus infection.