Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Comprehensive Review of Etiology, Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Ongoing Clinical Trials.

Deepika Sarvepalli

doi:10.7759/cureus.8076

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute respiratory viral infection caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease outbreak started in China in late December 2019 and quickly spread to the rest of the world, resulting in a pandemic. The incidence of cases is increasing every day, affecting millions of people around the globe and resulting in a public health emergency. Furthermore, disease management has been challenging for the clinicians and other medical personnel in terms of treatment options and availability of personal protective equipment. The off-label use of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and emergency use authorization of remdesivir can hopefully help the clinicians while treating critically ill patients. The use of convalescent serum has also shown some interim benefit until a definitive treatment and preventive options are uncovered, such as vaccines and other effective treatment regimens.

Highlights

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute respiratory viral infection related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
The incidence of new cases is increasing in devastating proportions in the United States and is declared a public health emergency [2]
The COVID-19 outbreak has been overwhelming to the nations in terms of economy and public health aspects of curbing the disease spread and keeping the incidence of cases to the lowest level possible

Summary

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute respiratory viral infection related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). By March 2020, China had reported a total of 82,160 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the mortality rate was 4%, resulting in 3,341 fatalities [14]. Wang et al conducted in vitro studies on the SARS-CoV-2 specimen and investigated the effectiveness of antiviral drugs such as ribavirin, penciclovir, remdesivir (GS- 5734), and favipiravir (T705), and few other medications such as nitazoxanide, nafamostat, and chloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19 [31].

Results

Conclusion