Coronavirus disease 2019: A new severe acute respiratory syndrome from Wuhan in China

Abstract

An outbreak of new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has emerged during December 2019. The ongoing outbreak in Wuhan City spread rapidly throughout China, where the fatality rate ranged from 2.1 to 4.9%. Due to its high transmissibility, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020. The current outbreak has the potential to become the first pandemic of the new millennium. Most patients who were first diagnosed with COVID-19 worked at or lived in the vicinity of the local Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where live animals were also on sale. The concerted efforts of Chinese scientists led to the independent isolation from patients and identification of a novel coronavirus, SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), on 6 January 2020; this has been an important step in the development of treatment. The purpose of this article is to overview the history, epidemiology, clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID 2019 reported in recently published studies. Based on the results of virus genome sequencing and a model of the interaction between host cells and the virus, we propose several possible targets for antiviral drugs, which may provide new ideas for epidemic control and vaccine development. Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus; pneumonia; SARS-CoV-2; Coronaviridae; COVID-19.