COVID-19 infection: Origin, transmission, and characteristics of human coronaviruses

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Abstract

The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a highly transmittable and pathogenic viral infection caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which emerged in Wuhan, China and spread around the world. Genomic analysis revealed that SARS-CoV-2 is phylogenetically related to severe acute respiratory syndrome-like (SARS-like) bat viruses, therefore bats could be the possible primary reservoir. The intermediate source of origin and transfer to humans is not known, however, the rapid human to human transfer has been confirmed widely. There is no clinically approved antiviral drug or vaccine available to be used against COVID-19. However, few broad-spectrum antiviral drugs have been evaluated against COVID-19 in clinical trials, resulted in clinical recovery. In the current review, we summarize and comparatively analyze the emergence and pathogenicity of COVID-19 infection and previous human coronaviruses severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). We also discuss the approaches for developing effective vaccines and therapeutic combinations to cope with this viral outbreak.

Keywords

Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Origin
Outbreak
Spread

Muhammad Adnan Shereen is a PhD researcher at Wuhan University, working on Zika virus and coronavirus in the aspects of pathogenesis, drug screening and molecular mechanisms. He is an author in 8 articles published in journals with impact factor more than 5 including the recently accepted paper in Nature microbiology.

Suliman Khan has completed his PhD degree from Chinese Academy of Sciences and currently working at second affiliated hospital of Zhengzhou university as postdoctoral scientist. He has published more than 25 articles and 5 on SARS-CoV-2 in well reputed journals including Clinical microbiology and infection (CMI) and Journal of clinical microbiology (ASM-JCM) as first and corresponding author.

Abeer Kazmi is a PhD student at Wuhan University.

Nadia Bashir is a PhD student at Wuhan University working on coronaviruses. She is an author in more than 5 papers published or accepted in renowned journals.

Rabeea Siddique is a PhD student at Zhengzhou university. She has published more than 10 papers in well reputed journals as first or coauthor.

Peer review under responsibility of Cairo University.

1

Contributed equally (M.A.S and S.K).

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? 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Cairo University.