The Novel Coronavirus COVID-19
The Novel Coronavirus – A Brief Introduction about the COVID-19
The Novel Coronavirus, now known as COVID-19 is a positive-sense single stranded RNA virus belonging to a large family of viruses known as Coronaviridae. Some coronaviruses cause illness in human and others cause illness in animals such as bats, camels. Human coronaviruses cause mild illness such as the common cold. Sometimes, animal coronaviruses can mutate to infect and spread among human, causing severe disease such as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) as occurred in 2002 and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) as emerged in 2012. But recently, a new strain of coronavirus named as COVID-19 by World Health Organization (WHO) has been emerged which initially affecting people in Hubei Province, China and now spread in several countries.This outbreak is similar to earlier outbreaks caused by two pathogenic human respiratory coronaviruses (SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV). As per the specialists, it is likely that COVID-19 originated in an animal species and then spread to human. This zoonotic coronavirus has crossed species to infect human populations. The virus was first identified in persons exposed to a seafood or wet market in Wuhan City of China.
But rapid response by Chinese Public Health Commission and scientific communities to recognize the disease and study for the understanding of the epidemiology of the infection is really appreciable. The COVID-19 causes respiratory diseases and grows better in primary airways epithelial cells than in standard tissue-culture cells. The virus can spread from person to person by sneezing, coughing or contact with respiratory secretions of people infected with COVID-19. The symptoms include fever, cough, running nose, pneumonia, shortness of breath.
In a typical infection disease, incubation period signifies
the period taken by the multiplying organism to reach a threshold necessary to
produce symptoms in the host. In simple words, the incubation period is the
period between infection and onset of disease and the latent period is the time
from infection to infectiousness. During the latency period, an infection is
subclinical. With respect to viral infection, virus is replicating during
incubation period while virus does not replicate during viral latency, a form
of dormancy. China’s National Health Commission released new research that the
standard 14-days quarantine period might not be enough to contain the spread of
the virus because a new study says that COVID-19 incubation period may be much
longer than once thought. Incubation period of Wuhan COVID-19 could be as long
as 24-days which is ten days more than previously believed.
Person can be diagnosed with infection with COVID-19 by taking sample from throat as swab or fluid from the lungs. Testing can be done in the laboratory for COVID-19 for confirmation. Real
Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) assay as well as CRISPR diagnostics can
be performed to detect the virus. The scientists have
characterized COVID-19 and the viral genome has been sequenced. The genome is
75-80 % identical to the SARS-CoV and even more closely related to several bat
coronaviruses.
For vaccine development, characterization of spike
glycoprotiens, polyproteins and other viral proteins is necessary. Similarly, homology modelling of these
proteins with known templates also provides the opportunity to find out ligand
binding sites. Hence, the study of proteins models including bioinformatics
analysis, sequence alignment, comparison of multiple sequences and homology
modelling of the Novel COVID-19 whole genome sequences, the spike protein and
the polyproteins for homology with kwon proteins provide the information for
possible vaccine development. Serologic assay can be developed for the
prevalence of the infection in human and in potential zoonotic sources of virus
in wet markets and other possible sites. Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain
Reaction (RT-PCR) assay can be performed to detect the virus.
Source: Immunology, Nature
Reviews
The most common route of transmission is respiratory droplets and direct contact but this neo virus is
also found in stool specimens, gastrointestinal tract, saliva, urine samples. Hence, human coronavirus strain can spread from person to person through contaminated droplets from a infected and sick person through sneezing or coughing or contaminated hands. As the virus doesn’t survive on the surface, there is no risk from the imported packages or electronic products. As currently there is no
available vaccine that protect against this virus, so prevention is better than cure now. Do practical simple things to reduce the risk of coronavirus-19, such as
- Cover your nose and mouth when sneezing and coughing with tissue
- Avoid close contact with person with cold and flu-like symptoms.
- Clean your hands thoroughly for at least 30 seconds with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub.
·
People who have symptoms and might be infected with COVID-19 are requested to stay in isolation at home and should wear surgical face mask to reduce the risk of transmitting this virus to anyone else. People
with confirmed COVID-19 infection stay will be in isolation under the care of
medical specialists until they are no longer expressing symptoms of COVID-19
infection. Before they are released from isolation they have tests if they still
have COVID-19 and the expert care team assess they are no longer infection.
China’s National Health Commission released new research that the standard
14-days quarantine period might not be enough to contain the spread of the
virus. Once they are discharged they have a follow up assessment by the medical
team to make sure they remain well.Till date, the novel Coronavirus has killed more than 2000 people and infected more than 74000 in China.
For more information, please
click on following links:
· https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/alerts/Pages/coronavirus-faqs.aspxhttps://www.jwatch.org/fw116282/2020/01/27/novel-coronavirus-incubation-period-lasts-2-weeks
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