Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Jul;131(1):93-96.
doi: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000004845.

Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2: A Brief Overview

Stephan Ludwig  1 , Alexander Zarbock  2
Affiliations
Review

Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2: A Brief Overview

Stephan Ludwig et al. Anesth Analg. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

In late December 2019, several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were reported from China, which in early January 2020 were announced to be caused by a novel coronavirus. The virus was later denominated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and defined as the causal agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Despite massive attempts to contain the disease in China, the virus has spread globally, and COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. Here we provide a short background on coronaviruses, and describe in more detail the novel SARS-CoV-2 and attempts to identify effective therapies against COVID-19.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

    1. Wu Z, McGoogan JM. Characteristics of and important lessons from the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. JAMA. 2020 February 24 [Epub ahead of print]. - PubMed
    1. International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Virus Taxonomy: 2018b Release. 2019. Available at: https://talk.ictvonline.org/taxonomy/. Accessed April 8, 2020.
    1. Drosten C, Preiser W, Günther S, Schmitz H, Doerr HW. Severe acute respiratory syndrome: identification of the etiological agent. Trends Mol Med. 2003;9:325–327. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Woo PC, Lau SK, Huang Y, Yuen KY. Coronavirus diversity, phylogeny and interspecies jumping. Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2009;234:1117–1127. - PubMed
    1. Fehr AR, Perlman S. Coronaviruses: an overview of their replication and pathogenesis. Methods Mol Biol. 2015;1282:1–23. - PMC - PubMed