English

S Binshaya Abdulkarim,Zaki Awal,F Alanazi Arwa,Bamaga Mohamed,Aldakheel Fahad,Alharthi Nahed,Q B Alenzi Faris,F Alanazi Amani,Alanazi Abdulaziz,Alsaihati Hajir,Alwatban Adnan

doi:10.5897/ajb2020.17231

Abstract

There is worldwide concern about the rapid spread of the Covid19 (COVID-19) pandemic which now affects almost every country in the world. Generating accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 by testing hundreds of thousands of people per day, and the search for effective therapeutics and vaccines are currently the focus of intense research in large numbers of companies and academic institutions around the world. This review will describe the background, origin, epidemiology, symptoms of COVID-19 infection, and its methods of detection. Because of the rapidly changing news on the development of new therapeutic approaches (many of which have already been discarded), and the constantly breaking news - on a daily basis - about the development of vaccines (there are currently 22 separate vaccine programmes worldwide), we will leave the future therapeutic and vaccination options outside the scope of this review. We will address these topics later, once some clarity has prevailed surrounding the large number of putative therapeutic and vaccination options that are currently being explored and an evidence-based approach can be meaningfully applied to interpreting how patient management, and national epidemiological management, can benefit by these emerging breakthroughs.   Key words: Covid-19, corona, diagnosis, epidemiology, cytokine storm, CT scan, SARS.

Highlights

Coronaviruses are amongst a large group of viruses that may cause disease in animals and humans
This study demonstrated that people older than 70 years of age showed worse symptoms, including health complications of longer duration and greater severity than people younger than 70 years old (Wang et al, 2020)
Other laboratory parameters have been investigated in predicting cases with positive reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for COVID-19, a higher neutrophil (NEU) count, C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and urea levels in serum have all been studied

Summary

Introduction

Coronaviruses are amongst a large group of viruses that may cause disease in animals and humans. The most sensitive tool used for confirming an infection with COVID-19 is the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. When validated serological tests are available these could be utilised using paired serum samples (in the acute and convalescent phase) to support diagnosis in the event that nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) assays return negative, yet a strong epidemiological link to COVID-19 infection remains (https://www.who.int/publicationsdetail/laboratory-testing-for-2019-novel-coronavirus-insuspected-human-cases-2020).

Results

Conclusion