Abstract
In December 2019, Wuhan, in China, became the center of an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause. In January 2020, a novel coronavirus was identified. Later the whole genomic sequence of this novel virus was established. The World Health Organization named the disease “COVID-19” and marked it as a pandemic. The origin of the virus is still conjectural. Studies suggested markedly increased levels of several pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in these patients, which lead to injury to several organs. The organ which is most commonly damaged is the lungs. On histopathology, lung shows diffuse alveolar damage with hyaline membrane formation. The incubation period ranges from 1-14 days. The clinical features vary widely, from asymptomatic to multi-organ failure and shock. The common clinical features are related to the respiratory system. For diagnosis, oropharyngeal/nasopharyngeal swabs should be collected by Dacron swabs under proper precaution and the samples should be collected in viral transport media. The viral ribonuclei acid is detected by Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction. Till now no definite therapy or vaccination is available and the main approach to manage the pandemic is by preventive measures like social distancing, hygiene maintenance, and contact tracing.
Highlights
Human coronaviruses (HCoVs) have long been considered usual pathogens causing “common cold” in otherwise healthy people
Thereafter, Sanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and School of Public Health established the whole genomic sequence of this novel virus and the sequence pattern revealed that “2019nCoV” had some amino acid homology to SARS-CoV of 2003.2 on 11th February 2020, the virus was named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) as “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” because of its phylogenetic similarity with SARS-CoV
SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and the new COVID-19 virus all belong to the family of betacoronavirus, it is believed that COVID-19 virus might have originated from bats, and later on could have disseminated to other intermediary animals before making a leap to humans
Summary
In December 2019, Wuhan, in China, became the center of an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause. Later the whole genomic sequence of this novel virus was established. The World Health Organization named the disease “COVID-19” and marked it as a pandemic. The origin of the virus is still conjectural. The organ which is most commonly damaged is the lungs. The clinical features vary widely, from asymptomatic to multi-organ failure and shock. The common clinical features are related to the respiratory system. Oropharyngeal/nasopharyngeal swabs should be collected by Dacron swabs under proper precaution and the samples should be collected in viral transport media. The viral ribonuclei acid is detected by Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction.
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