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Review
. 2020 Sep 2;19(1):40.
doi: 10.1186/s12941-020-00384-w.

SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and advances in developing potential therapeutics and vaccines to counter this emerging pandemic

Ali A Rabaan  1 , Shamsah H Al-Ahmed  2 , Ranjit Sah  3 , Ruchi Tiwari  4 , Mohd Iqbal Yatoo  5 , Shailesh Kumar Patel  6 , Mamta Pathak  6 , Yashpal Singh Malik  7 , Kuldeep Dhama  8 , Karam Pal Singh  6 , D Katterine Bonilla-Aldana  9   10 , Shafiul Haque  11 , Dayron F Martinez-Pulgarin  10 , Alfonso J Rodriguez-Morales  12   13   14 , Hakan Leblebicioglu  15
Affiliations
Review

SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and advances in developing potential therapeutics and vaccines to counter this emerging pandemic

Ali A Rabaan et al. Ann Clin Microbiol Antimicrob. .

Abstract

A novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), causing an emerging coronavirus disease (COVID-19), first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which has taken a catastrophic turn with high toll rates in China and subsequently spreading across the globe. The rapid spread of this virus to more than 210 countries while affecting more than 25 million people and causing more than 843,000 human deaths, it has resulted in a pandemic situation in the world. The SARS-CoV-2 virus belongs to the genus Betacoronavirus, like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, all of which originated in bats. It is highly contagious, causing symptoms like fever, dyspnea, asthenia and pneumonia, thrombocytopenia, and the severely infected patients succumb to the disease. Coronaviruses (CoVs) among all known RNA viruses have the largest genomes ranging from 26 to 32 kb in length. Extensive research has been conducted to understand the molecular basis of the SARS-CoV-2 infection and evolution, develop effective therapeutics, antiviral drugs, and vaccines, and to design rapid and confirmatory viral diagnostics as well as adopt appropriate prevention and control strategies. To date, August 30, 2020, no effective, proven therapeutic antibodies or specific drugs, and vaccines have turned up. In this review article, we describe the underlying molecular organization and phylogenetic analysis of the coronaviruses, including the SARS-CoV-2, and recent advances in diagnosis and vaccine development in brief and focusing mainly on developing potential therapeutic options that can be explored to manage this pandemic virus infection, which would help in valid countering of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Immunotherapeutics; SARS-CoV-2; Therapeutics; Vaccines.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare that there exist no commercial or financial relationships that could, in any way, lead to a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Genome sequence phylogenetic analyses of GISAID (http://www.gisaid.org)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
An overview of COVID-19 therapeutics and drugs
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
An overview of designing and developing COVID-19 vaccines
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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