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
. 2020 Aug 19:8:e9725.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.9725. eCollection 2020.

A comparison of COVID-19, SARS and MERS

Tingting Hu #  1 , Ying Liu #  1 , Mingyi Zhao  1 , Quan Zhuang  2 , Linyong Xu  3 , Qingnan He  1
Affiliations

A comparison of COVID-19, SARS and MERS

Tingting Hu et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

In mid-December 2019, a novel atypical pneumonia broke out in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China and was caused by a newly identified coronavirus, initially termed 2019 Novel Coronavirus and subsequently severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of 19 May 2020, a total of 4,731,458 individuals were reported as infected with SARS-CoV-2 among 213 countries, areas or territories with recorded cases, and the overall case-fatality rate was 6.6% (316,169 deaths among 4,731,458 recorded cases), according to the World Health Organization. Studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 is notably similar to (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus) SARS-CoV that emerged in 2002-2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that spread during 2012, and these viruses all contributed to global pandemics. The ability of SARS-CoV-2 to rapidly spread a pneumonia-like disease from Hubei Province, China, throughout the world has provoked widespread concern. The main symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) include fever, cough, myalgia, fatigue and lower respiratory signs. At present, nucleic acid tests are widely recommended as the optimal method for detecting SARS-CoV-2. However, obstacles remain, including the global shortage of testing kits and the presentation of false negatives. Experts suggest that almost everyone in China is susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and to date, there are no effective treatments. In light of the references published, this review demonstrates the biological features, spread, diagnosis and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 as a whole and aims to analyse the similarities and differences among SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV to provide new ideas and suggestions for prevention, diagnosis and clinical treatment.

Keywords: COVID-19; Clinical presentations; Epidemiology; Laboratory diagnosis; MERS-CoV; Radiological features; SARS-CoV.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Methodical approach of this review.
Figure 2
Figure 2. The genome organizations of 2019-nCoV (A), SARS-CoV (B) and MERS-CoV (C).
Figure 3
Figure 3. The structure of the coronavirus.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abd El Wahed A, Patel P, Heidenreich D, Hufert FT, Weidmann M. Reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification assay for the detection of middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. PLOS Currents. 2013;5:e8364. doi: 10.1371/currents.outbreaks.62df1c7c75ffc96cd59034531e2e8364. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adair LN, Ledermann EJ. Chest CT findings of early and progressive phase COVID-19 infection from a US patient. Radiology Case Reports. 2020;15(7):819–824. doi: 10.1016/j.radcr.2020.04.031. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aggarwal G, Lippi G, Michael Henry B. Cerebrovascular disease is associated with an increased disease severity in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a pooled analysis of published literature. International Journal of Stroke. 2020;15(4):385–389. doi: 10.1177/1747493020921664. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ahmadzadeh J, Mobaraki K, Mousavi SJ, Aghazadeh-Attari J, Mirza-Aghazadeh-Attari M, Mohebbi I. The risk factors associated with MERS-CoV patient fatality: a global survey. Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease. 2020;96(3):114876. doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2019.114876. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ajlan AM. Reply to “Chest CT findings in MERS”. AJR: American Journal of Roentgenology. 2015;204:W112. doi: 10.2214/AJR.14.13367. - DOI - PubMed