COVID-19: A dreaded pandemic

Abstract

What started as an unusual respiratory tract infection in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has spread it’s roots across the globe, in all continents except Antarctica. Controversy related to origin of this virus is still remained unanswered. Because of it’s resemblance to SARS virus, this new virus was labeled as Severe acute respiratory syndrome-Corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and disease caused by SARS-CoV2 is referred to as COVID-19.

Disease predominantly spreads by respiratory droplets, directly or through fomites. 4 Clinical spectrum of COVID-19 varies from asymptomatic or mild to severe life threatening cases. Incubation period is 2-14 days. Fever, cough and shortness of breath being commonest symptoms, fatigue, shaking chills and loss of sense of smell and taste are also commonly found symptoms. Almost 81% patients have mild symptoms while 14% need admission to hospital and only 5% become critical and require ICU care. Older people, and people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus.