COVID-19 in clinical practice: A narrative synthesis

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in the city of Wuhan, China. The disease rapidly spread to the rest of China, to Southern-East Asia, then to Europe, America, and on to the rest of the world. COVID-19 is associated with a betacoronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. The virus penetrates the organism through the respiratory tract, conveyed by contaminated droplets. The main cell receptor targeted is the surface-bound ACE-2. As of the 26th July 2020, 15,200,000 COVID-19 cases and 650,000 deaths were reported worldwide. The mortality rate is estimated between 1.3 and 18.3%. The reproductive rate without any public health intervention is estimated around 4-5.1 in France. Most hospitalized patients for COVID-19 present respiratory symptoms, which in some cases is associated with fever. Up to 86% of admissions to ICU are related to acute respiratory failure. To date, no anti-viral therapy has proven its efficacy considering randomized trials. Only immunomodulatory treatments such as corticosteroids have shown to cause significant improvement in patient outcome.