Unheralded Entrance by COVID-19: A Concise Review

Abstract

Novel corona virus(COVID-19) was first described in December 2019, identified as the cause of a clus-ter of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, a city in the Hubei Province of China. Since then world wide spread is report-ed affecting millions of people. India reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 30th in Kerala. On March 11, 2020 after spread to Spain, Italy, USA and other parts of the world, WHO declared it as a pandemic and it indi-cated widespread community transmission on at least two continents. It belongs to the order Nidovirales , family Coronaviridae , and the subfamily Orthocoronaviri-nae.Corona virus is spherical, enveloped, and the largest of positive-strand RNA viruses. It uses, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, for cell entry. The incubation period for COVID-19 is thought to be with-in 14 days following exposure. In person to person transmission, respiratory droplets were considered the main mode as it can happen through coughing, sneezing, and even while speaking. Person to person transmis-sion also occurs after touching the surface infected with respiratory droplets of an infected person, and touch-ing the face (coming in contact with a mucous membrane of eyes, nose and oral cavity). The spectrum of symptomatic infection ranges from mild to critical; most infections are not severe. It can range from a simple URTI to a complicated pneumonia. Fever(99%), Fatigue(70%), Dry cough (59 %), Ano-rexia (40%), Myalgias(35 %), Dyspnea (31 %), Sputum production (27 %) were the most common clinical fea-tures. No treatment is approved or shown effective and safe. Remdesivir, Lopinavir/ritonavir and many other antiviral drugs are in trial. Acute respiratory distress syndrome , Cardiovascular complications, Acute liver inju-ry, Cytokine release syndrome, Septic shock , Neurological complications are reported in some studies.