Epidemiology, Treatment and Microbiological Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Coronaviruses (CoV) belong to Coronaviridiae family that cause deadly diseases in humans or animals. These viruses are enveloped and have single stranded positive-sense large RNA genome. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes deadly pandemic coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in humans. It is affecting every aspect of humans’ daily life. The symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, loss of smell, shortness of breath, cough, muscles pain, chest pain, and kidney failure that occurs in severe conditions. The virus has spread throughout the world.  In India, the estimated number of infected people is more than 1.5 lakh with less fatality rate 2.87% on May 27, 2020 as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data. The studies suggest that virus has been considered descended from the previous viruses as severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome virus (MERS) human and bat corona viruses. Currently, vaccine developments are under clinical trials. The management of emerging infectious diseases is a challenging task. It requires much improved microbiological surveillance system to track and predict the virus infections. The proper study and predictions based on screening of various sources of infection may help us to manage the challenging infections in future. The present review summarizes the characteristics of virus, disease symptoms, epidemiology, transmission, treatment and microbiological surveillance of pandemic COVID-19.