Coronavirus Disease 2019
In the last two decades, the world has recorded several viral diseases that have registered severe threats to human health. These include H1N1 influenza in 2009, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) from 2002-2003, and the Middle East CoV (MERS-CoV) identified in 2012. In the present day, there has been a pandemic of epic proportions first reported in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in China. The unexplained illness led to lower tract respiratory problems in older and immunocompromised patients, sometimes leading to mortality. At the same time, healthy adults got upper tract respiratory problems, which ceased after about 14 days. The first case was registered with the WHO China offices on 31st December 2019, with no identification of the causative agent (Cascella et al., 2020). After investigation, the illness was attributed to a novel virus of the Coronavirus family and was this called COVID-19.
The novel coronavirus is highly contagious and has spread globally, with its source thought to be animal-human transmission from the Huanan Seafood Market in Hubei. The virus is now named the SARS-CoV-2, a member of the Coronavirus family with single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA). The family, including the new CoV, resembles a crown with glycoprotein spikes. SARS-CoV-2 has a genome with 29891 nucleotides translated into 9860 amino acids. Mutations in the original virus are believed to have caused the viruses’ high virulence with WHO reporting 276,113 cases and 11,402 deaths globally.
Although the origin is not known, the human-human transmission of COVID-19 is through human contact with close contacts, healthcare professionals, and family members being most affected. The incubation time is the first 3-7 days up to 14 days, with the longest time from infection to symptoms being 12.5 days (Cascella et al., 2020). An average patient with COVID-19 spreads it to at least 2.2 other individuals, with the pandemic doubling every seven days.
Patients show a large variety of symptoms from asymptomatic forms to clinical conditions indicating respiratory illnesses. These include organ failure, septic shock, sepsis, and multiple organ dysfunctions. High fevers, dry coughs, headaches, and dyspnea are generally reported in all patients, with no significant changes between the genders. The overall fatality rate on reported cases is low at about 2.3%. Fatalities are mostly recorded in elderly patients, with about 15% of mortality in patients above 85 years and 8% between 70-79 years (Cascella et al., 2020).
The pandemic proportions of the disease have currently put the global health infrastructure to the test. Since the epidemiology of the disease is not very clear at the moment, the response to the infection is also not as planned. In the country of origin, China, a massive quarantine, was called, which reduced the spread of the disease within the nation. In a period of about one month, China has seen a lag in the number of new infections with the infection rate thought to be contained now. In other countries like Italy and much of Europe, the response was quite slow, and health systems are now strained with lockdowns, which have continued to affect the economy.
Mitigation is currently focused on preventing exposure to the virus through social distancing and isolation. Initial response in most nations begins with the closure of educational institutions and the banning of large social gatherings such as sports and entertainment. For most countries reporting more than a hundred cases, local and international travel has been curtailed with entities like the European Union banning travel (Cascella et al., 2020). Italy has entered into a national emergency with a lockdown that is in the second week. Bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and other entertainment points have been closed across most nations. Non-essential workers have been urged to stay home in states such as California, New York, and Illinois. Funding for mitigation of COVID-19 spread is currently underway in most nations, while vaccine development is still in its initial stages. However, with adherence to proper personal hygiene and active social distancing, it is likely that the disease can now die down, although the economic consequences will be felt for a while after infections flatten out.