The new pandemic outbreak that started in the second half of December 2019 is a recent addition to the several new diseases such as Ebola virus, Zika virus, Nipah virus and corona viruses that appeared in the last two decades in various geographical regions. However, the genomic sequencing did not match with earlier sequenced CoVs, signifying a novel CoV strain, which has been termed as severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV-2(2019-nCoV). The disease is highly contagious unlike the earlier ones and usually spreads from droplet infections. About 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation. As of today, no specific antiviral agent or vaccine is available to treat this COVID-19. The treatment regimens used mostly comes from previous experience of usage of drugs for earlier corona virus diseases (SARS and MERS). Here we discuss the pathophysiologic, diagnostic, clinical presentation, management, vaccine and preventive aspects of COVID-19.
Key words: Covid-19, pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, cytokine storm
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