Corona Virus COVID-19 SARS-CoV SARS-CoV2 Novel corona virus COVID Corona

COVID-19;

Stand for coronavirus disease in 2019. The name COVID-19 was given by WHO on February 11 2020 to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2. The name SARS-CoV2 was given to it because this virus is a genetic cousin of coronavirus which caused the SARS outbreak in 2002 (SARS-CoV) [1].

What is coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are common human and animal single-strand RNA genome viruses belonging to the family coronaviridae that was first, discover in the 1930S in domestic poultry.

In animals, coronavirus causes a range of respiratory, gastrointestinal, and neurologic diseases. 

In human coronaviruses are mainly seven types that cause a range of diseases.

A)Four human coronaviruses cause symptoms of the common cold namely; 229E, OC43, NL63, and HUK1.

B)Three human coronaviruses cause much more serious lung infections, also called pneumonia.

SARS-CoV in 2002 (severe acute respiratory syndrome or “SARS”).

MERS-CoV in 2012 (Middle East respiratory syndrome or “MERS”).

 SARS-CoV2 in 2019(the current pandemic known as COVID-19). Also called novel coronavirus ist time identified in humans which are totally different from the ist two one A and B in Wuhan city of China in Dec 2019 [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9].

 

The CDC's image of the coronavirus.(Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins/CDC)

Comparison of SARS-CoV and COVID-19:

ITEMS	SARS-CoV	COVID-19
First occurrence	Nov.16th,2002 in Foshan, Guangdong	Dec 07th 2019 in Wuhan Hubei
Pathogen	SARS-CoV	SARS-CoV-2
Intermediate host	Paguma larvata	Pangolin, Mink (Possible)
Definitive host	Rhinolophus sinicus	Rhinolophus affinis (Possible)
Virus type	RNA virus	RNA virus
Species pathogen	β-coronavirus	β-coronavirus
Total DNA sequence	29,751	29,903
Length of pathogen	1–4 days on average	3–7 days on average
Latency	Young adults	People who have not been exposed to SARS-CoV-2
Male female patients  ratio	1:1.25	2.70:1
Mortality	9.60%	2.10%
Clinical symptoms	Fever, cough, myalgia, dyspnea, and diarrhea	Fever, fatigue, and dry cough
Propagation mode	Droplets or close contacts	Droplets or close contacts
Major regional distribution	Beijing, Guangdong, Shanxi in China	Beijing, Guangdong, Shanxi in China
Diagnostic method	RT-PCR, rRT-PCR, RT-LAMP, rRT-LAMP, Coronavirus detectionkit	RT-PCR, rRT-PCR, RT-LAMP, rRT-LAMP, Coronavirus detection kit
Treatment	Glucocorticoid and interferon	Glucocorticoid and interferon

Clinical symptoms:

Anosmia: loss of smell.

Ageusia: loss of taste are the two main symptoms of asymptomatic patients. If you have these two symptoms please quarantine yourself for 8 to 14 days in order to avoid the spread of infection.

Fever in (100%) patients.

Tiredness in (100%) patients.

Dry Cough in (61.8%) of patients.

Myalgia in (48.7%) of patients.

Dyspnea in (40.8%) patients.

Diarrhea (31.6%) patients.

Sore throat in (100%) patients.

Runny nose in (100%) patients.[10,11,].

Clinical signs:

Beijing Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention indicated that the typical case of COVID-19 has a progressive aggravation process. Based on the severity of the disease COVID-19 can be classified into Light, Normal, Severe, and Critical.

(1)   light  cases:

Ø Mild clinical symptoms.

Ø No pneumonia.

(2)   normal cases: 

Ø Fever

Ø Respiratory symptoms.

Ø Patients found to have imaging manifestations of pneumonia.

(3) Severe cases: identified by one of the following three conditions:

Respiratory distress, respiratory rate ≥ 30 times/min (in resting state, refers to oxygen saturation ≤ 93%).

Partial arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2)/oxygen.

Absorption concentration (FiO2) ≤ 300 mmHg (1 mmHg = 0.133 kPa).

(4) Critical cases: identified by one of the following three conditions:

Respiratory failure and the need for mechanical ventilation,

shock,

the associated failure of other organs requiring the intensive care unit.[12,13,14,15].

 

Virus incubation:

Ø latency of COVID-19 varies from 3–7 days on average, going up to 14 days for some patients. for some patients.

During this incubation period, patients affect approximately 4 patients.

The average latency of COVID-19 is slightly longer than that of SARS.[16,17] 

 Susceptible populations:

 Li et al. reported that people who have not been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 are all susceptible to COVID-19 [18].

Among the 8,866 patients who have been confirmed with COVID-19, nearly half of the patients have been aged 50 years or older (47.7%) [17]

male-to-female ratio is about 2.7:1 [19].

the average incubation period is 5.2 days [20].

Death mostly occurs in the middle age adult and elder people with a smoking history and heart disease, hypertension, Chronic respiratory diseases cancer, and diabetes mellitus.[21,22]

COVID-19 patients mortality rate was 2.1% [23].

Animal Reservoirs:

SARS-CoV2 shares about 80% of the gene sequence with that of SARS-CoV

Bats: RNA of coronavirus isolated from bats is 96.2% of similarities to human coronavirus RNA.[12] 

Snakes: RNA of coronavirus isolated from snakes is 92.2% similar to that of human coronavirus RNA.[24,25,]

Pangolin: RNA of coronavirus isolated from pangolin is 99% similarities with that of human coronavirus RNA.[26]

Prevention:

The social distance is approximately 6 feet.

Washing hands regularly through soap nearly for 20 seconds (WHO).

Limit social gathering

Avoid close contact with anyone who is sick.

 Clean and disinfect frequently touched objectives and surfaces.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.

Cough or sneeze in your bent elbow not on your hands.[27,28,]

Diagnosis of coronavirus:

Current diagnostic tests for coronavirus include

RT-PCR.

real-time reverse transcription PCR (RRT-PCR).

reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification.

real-time RT-LAMP. [29,30,31,32].

Treatment:

Until now specific treatment for coronavirus is not discovered but patients can be treated in a number of ways.

Isolation of patients

Symptomatic treatment

As effective drugs for SARS, hormones, and interferons can also be used to treat COVID-19 [33]. Lopinavir is one kind of protease inhibitor used to treat HIV infection, with ritonavir as a booster. Lopinavir and/or ritonavir have anti-coronavirus activity in vitro. Hong Kong scholars found that, compared with ribavirin alone, patients treated with lopinavir/ritonavir and ribavirin had a lower risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or death caused by SARS-CoV [34,35]. Lopinavir/ritonavir has also been clinically tested in the treatment of COVID-19 and showed wonderfully effective treatment for some patients, but the general clinical effect has not been determined [36].