Abstract
COVID-19 is a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), caused by SARS-CoV-2, a novel virus which belongs to the family Coronaviridae. It was first reported in December 2019 in the Wuhan city of China and soon after, the virus and hence the disease got spread to the entire world. As of February 26, 2021, SARS-CoV-2 has infected ~112.20 million people and caused ~2.49 million deaths across the globe. Although the case fatality rate among SARS-CoV-2 patient is lower (~2.15%) than its earlier relatives, SARS-CoV (~9.5%) and MERS-CoV (~34.4%), the SARS-CoV-2 has been observed to be more infectious and caused higher morbidity and mortality worldwide. As of now, only the knowledge regarding potential transmission routes and the rapidly developed diagnostics has been guiding the world for managing the disease indicating an immediate need for a detailed understanding of the pathogen and the disease-biology. Over a very short period of time, researchers have generated a lot of information in unprecedented ways in the key areas, including viral entry into the host, dominant mutation, potential transmission routes, diagnostic targets and their detection assays, potential therapeutic targets and drug molecules for inhibiting viral entry and/or its replication in the host including cross-neutralizing antibodies and vaccine candidates that could help us to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the current review, we have summarized the available knowledge about the pathogen and the disease, COVID-19. We believe that this readily available knowledge base would serve as a valuable resource to the scientific and clinical community and may help in faster development of the solution to combat the disease.
Highlights
We have summarized the available knowledge about the pathogen and the disease, COVID-19
In the absence of a robust, extensively tested, and effective treatment regimen, the only possible option left for efficient disease management is to understand its pathogenesis and biology in detail for the development of cost-effective and efficient diagnostic systems to curtail the disease transmission and treatment regimens for controlling the disease at a population level
In furtherance of scientific explorations, the transmission rate of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 was reported to be higher in comparison to its ancestors, SARS-CoV and MERSCoV, besides having high sequence similarity
Summary
COVID-19 is a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), caused by SARS-CoV-2, a novel virus which belongs to the family Coronaviridae. It was first reported in December 2019 in the Wuhan city of China and soon after, the virus and the disease got spread to the entire world. The epicenter for the SARS-CoV outbreak was the Guangdong province of southern China but due to air travel, it reached the other 19 countries of Southeast Asia, South Africa, North America, and Europe Over time, it infected 8,605 individuals and caused 774 deaths (CFR = 9.5%) worldwide (Peeri et al, 2020).
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