COVID-2019: update on epidemiology, disease spread and management

Abstract

With each passing day, more cases of Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) are being detected and unfortunately the fear of novel corona virus 2019 (2019-nCoV) becoming a pandemic disease has come true. Constant efforts at individual, national, and international level are being made in order to understand the genomics, hosts, modes of transmission and epidemiological link of nCoV-2019. As of now, whole genome sequence of the newly discovered coronavirus has already been decoded. Genomic characterization nCoV-2019 have shown close homology with batderived severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronaviruses, bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21. Structural analysis of the receptor binding site has confirmed that 2019-nCoV binds with the same ACE 2 receptor protein as human SARS virus. Compared to the previous coronavirus outbreaks, the overall mortality rate is relatively low for COVID-2019 (2-3%). Suspected cases must be quarantined till their test comes positive or they clear infection. At present, treatment of COVID-2019 is mostly based on the knowledge gained from the SARS and MERS outbreaks. Remdesivir, originally develop as a treatment for Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus infections, is being studied for its effectiveness against 2019-nCoV infection. Many other antiviral agents and vaccines are being tested but most of them are in phase I or II and hence unlikely to be of any benefit immediately with regards to current outbreak. Hence, the standard infection control techniques and preventive steps for healthy individuals and supportive care for the confirmed cases is the best available strategy to deal with current viral outbreak.

Protocol for a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Disparities in COVID-19

“…respectively. Studies will be categorized in quality of good [with the scores of [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44], moderate [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33], and poor [0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

“…Since its beginning in late December 2019 in Wuhan-China [1] and rapid spread in more than 180 countries, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused 379,941 deaths and many more morbidity by June 3, 2020 [2]. The spread of the disease was so rapid that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a global public health emergency on March 11, 2020 [3]. Due to the lack of certain treatment as well as vaccination [3,4], most of the researches have focused on clinical, pharmaceutical, and epidemiological aspects of the pandemic and the main role of the public health in ensuring the equity in access to needed services and, consequently, health outcomes have been overlooked [5].…”

Remdesivir in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a simplified summary

“…Overall, human and animal coronavirus comprises of four genera namely a, b, c and d coronavirus genus (Sinha et al, 2020). The b coronavirus includes the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and SARS-CoV-2 (Khan, Jha, et al, 2020;Sahu et al, 2020).…”

COVID-19 and clinical mimics. Correct diagnosis is the key to appropriate therapy

“…The commonest clinical features that have been reported in patients presenting with COVID-19 infections are fever, cough, and shortness of breath [1,2]. However, these three clinical features continue to be the most common clinical presentation of various other diseases as well.…”