Tracing the Origin and Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-CoV-2: Does Genome Research Hold the Key?

Abstract

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Since then, the virus has been rapidly spreading across countries, resulting in the present Corona Virus Disease (COVID-2019) pandemic. Thousands of genomes of different strains of the virus have been sequenced and made available in the public domain which has helped to detect viral mutations and track movement of the virus across the globe. The whole genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 isolated from a human strain has 96.2% similarity to a bat coronavirus. The strains of SARS-CoV-2 found in different countries are genetically diverse and infections have been shown to be caused by multiple introductions in the same country. Though there are several theories regarding the origin of this virus, genetic studies indicate that it may have appeared by natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer. This review highlights the recent knowledge of the origin of the coronavirus, its diversity in different geographical regions and mutations, which have aided it to infect the human host.