Understanding the SARS-CoV-2 virus to mitigate current and future pandemic(s)

Abstract

Micro-organisms form the first pioneer community in the history of biological life, thought to be present in the primordial soup and evolving later with more complex life-forms. Among micro-organisms, viruses form a separate taxon of organisms. Viruses are obligate parasites, being inactive without a host and becoming active once in contact with specific hosts. Viruses, with an inherent ability to infect and hijack cellular structures, have been utilised as vectors to introduce foreign genetic material in a variety of biological species, e.g. adenoviral vectors. However, viruses have also been the root cause of many infectious diseases, most notable being HIV-AIDS, for its resistance to treatment and omnipresent occurrence. There are many families of viruses like retroviridae, picornaviridae and poxviridae. This review focuses on a specific member of the coronaviridae, the SARS-CoV-2. This virus is responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic. This review summarises its transmission, molecular mechanism by which it causes disease, associated clinical symptoms and the strategies available to control it from sources like PubMed, Google Scholar, webservers of National Institute of Health (NIH), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), World Health Organisation (WHO), United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available as on 1st May 2021.