- Published
- 17 April 2020
- Journal article
Novel Coronavirus: Current Understanding of Clinical Features, Diagnosis, Pathogenesis, and Treatment Options
- Authors
- Source
- Pathogens
Full text
Abstract
Since December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acuterespiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in devastating consequencesworldwide and infected more than 350,000 individuals and killed more than 16,000 people.SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh member of the coronavirus family to affect humans. Symptoms ofCOVID-19 include fever (88%), cough (68%), vomiting (5%) and diarrhoea (3.7%), and transmissionof SARS-CoV-2 is thought to occur from human to human via respiratory secretions released by theinfected individuals when coughing and sneezing. COVID-19 can be detected through computedtomography scans and confirmed through molecular diagnostics tools such as polymerase chainreaction. Currently, there are no effective treatments against SARS-CoV-2, hence antiviral drugshave been used to reduce the development of respiratory complications by reducing viral load.The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive update on the pathogenesis, clinical aspects,diagnosis, challenges and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Rights
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Cite as
Mungroo, M., Khan, N. & Siddiqui, R. 2020, 'Novel Coronavirus: Current Understanding of Clinical Features, Diagnosis, Pathogenesis, and Treatment Options', Pathogens, 9(4), article no: 297. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens9040297