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| COVID-19: The global pandemic | | |
SHILPI SHARMA, GOURAV SINGH BADWAL, PAWAN KUMAR
The Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 is an unprecedented global emergency which has lead to a large number of casualties, health crises, disruption of daily chores and economic setbacks. COVID-19 or 2019-nCoV is a highly infectious disease which is caused by SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). This novel virus originated in Wuhan, Hubei province, China in December 2019 and has taken over the whole world in the matter of a month.
World health organization (WHO) has announced the disease as a global public health emergency and a pandemic. Although, SARS-CoV-2 has lower mortality rate than SARS-CoV-1, which infected around 8000 people during the year 2003, yet it is more contagious. Presently, the reach of COVID-19 is on a preliminary stage and the cases are expected to rise in near future. The major symptoms of the disease include cough, fever, breathlessness etc and may progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome. Recently, the cases have been discovered where the COVID-19 positive patients were found to be asymptomatic, which is a matter of great concern for effective identification of infected individuals. Therefore, the better understanding of the coronavirus origin and its infection biology is of prime importance to control disease spread and clinical management. The life on earth has come to a stand-still due to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
There is no vaccine or treatment available against the virus. Further research is needed to substantially understand the biology of SARS-CoV-2 infection and progression of COVID-19 disease. The combination of computer-aided drug design and drug repurposing is considered as the fastest way to find the treatment and is widely adapted by various research groups world-wide.
All the drugs and the treatments mentioned above are still going under randomized clinical trials. Scientist across the globe are working hard to find the cure and to develop vaccine as soon as possible, yet and it will take some time for the vaccine to be developed and made available for the public. Meanwhile, travel history to epidemic areas shouldn’t be kept hidden and should be timely reported to the authorities to prevent the spread of the disease. More importantly, the containment of disease spread should be considered as each and every individual’s responsibility to protect their relatives, neighbors and fellow countrymen. Until the effective treatment or the vaccine is being developed, following the governmental policies of lockdown and social distancing to stay safe is the only possible and sensible argument we have against the infection. |
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