Epidemiology, Evolution, Transmission, and Therapeutics of COVID-19 Outbreak: An Update on the Status

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an etiologic agent of the respiratory disease in humans known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The beginning of the outbreak of the disease was initially reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019, where patients felt SARS pneumonia-like symptoms with unknown etiology. Since then, it has been noticed that SARS-CoV-2 positive patients show mild to severe upper respiratory ill-ness.SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the class of Coronavirus, which is known to make its transfer from animals to humans and for the concerned virus; investigators have claimed its origin from bat coro-navirus at whole-genome level with a 96% sequence identity. The COVID-19 virus is extremely contagious and communicable in nature and has spread across the world since its first outbreak doc-umented in Wuhan, China. On March 9, 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a pandemic, and within a month, it was already reported to have shown its presence in 213 countries and territories or areas. As of Nov15, 2020, this novel virus has infected approximately. 53.7 million people and caused 1.3 million mortalities worldwide. However, the mortality rate varied between 3-13% and was influenced by a number of factors, including the demographic distribution and maybe age, comorbidities, etc. Diagnosis of the disease is a key component of controlling the spread of the virus, and several techniques, including RT-PCR, ELISA, and sequencing-based ap-proaches, are in use. To cure COVID-19 patients, as of now, we do not have any safe and effective treatment. Currently, there is no safe and effective drug for the disease. Furthermore, various pharmaceutical industries are working on vaccine developments, which are in progress with the final stages of clinical studies. Therapeutic options are also currently under investigation in various re-gions of the world. However, there are various potential therapeutic targets to repurpose the present antiviral therapy for developing potential interventions against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Boosting the immune system can also help to prevent the spread of COVID-19 using various medications and exercises. Here, this review summarizes and discusses the epidemiology, evolution, transmis-sion, and therapeutics scientific advancements related to this novel pandemic.