Coronaviruses, History, Classification, and COVID–19
Srijan Goswami, Chiranjeeb Dey in COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, 2022
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) belongs to the coronavirus family as it has remarkable similarity with the SARS virus, the virus that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002 (WHO, 2020: 36). Several studies have confirmed that the SARS virus of 2002 first originated in bats (initial host) where it mutated and achieved the ability to infect other hosts (intermediate host). Naturally, coronaviruses are benign but they might gain the ability to cause severe diseases in humans if they undergo appropriate mutations in primary and intermediate hosts. After severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by the SARS virus in 2002 and Middle East respiratory syndrome by the MERS virus in 2012, in 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a member of the same family, first mutated inside bats (primary host), then jumped to an intermediate host (the actual source of the intermediate host is still under investigation), and it further mutated and gained the ability to infect human beings, causing COVID-19 (WHO, 2020). Several studies have revealed that viruses (including coronaviruses) possess the tendency to undergo periodic mutations which provides them with the ability to cross the species barrier. This phenomenon is known as a zoonotic spillover event, a term used to indicate the situation when a virus overcomes the naturally occurring barriers necessary to “spillover” from one species to another. An accurate prediction of a viral-spill timeframe is not easy as it involves multiple factors (Figure 1.4).
COVID-19, social anxiety, and economic-political crisis in Hong Kong
Ben Y.F. Fong, Martin C.S. Wong in The Routledge Handbook of Public Health and the Community, 2021
Specifically, when the virus first broke out in late January 2020, although the number of confirmed infected cases was few, Hong Kong could remember the painful experience of the 2003 SARS virus outbreak, so largely, the general public quickly became panicked and seriously concerned. Wearing a face mask has been proven to be one of the key ways for reducing the risk of contracting the disease, and keeping good personal hygiene and having a clean-living environment are also considered effective ways to slow the spread of virus and protect oneself, these measures though meant that whether a household had sufficient PPE became a great concern for many people. Shortages of PPE and drastic price increases of PPE had stirred public concern and criticism of the government’s response to handling the outbreak.
AI and Immunology Considerations in Pandemics and SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19
Louis J. Catania in AI for Immunology, 2021
Several studies suggest that antibodies against non-SARS-CoVs are highly prevalent in the general population including children, suggesting that most individuals have been infected by CoVs and have potentially developed a certain degree of (protective) immunity.19 The severity and the clinical events in some SARS-CoV-2 infections could be related to the activation of an exaggerated, combined immune reaction (“cytokine storm”), causing uncontrolled inflammation (i.e., the immune system as “our worst enemy”). The hypothesis that SARS-CoV-1 (or other, antigenically similar CoV-1) have silently infected a significant proportion of the population, inducing a form of herd immunity (see “Treatment and management strategies” below) has not been confirmed nor apparent in the current pandemic.
Is post-COVID syndrome an autoimmune disease?
Published in Expert Review of Clinical Immunology, 2022
Juan-Manuel Anaya, María Herrán, Santiago Beltrán, Manuel Rojas
Coronaviruses gained importance during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), between 2002 and 2003 in China [64]. Modolfsky et al. [55] reported the long-term adverse effects of SARS in a cohort of patients for the first time. His cohort described symptoms such as chronic fatigue, pain, weakness, depression, and sleep disturbances as typical [55]. After the emergence of SARS, middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS), caused by the middle east respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), was described in Saudi Arabia in 2012 [64]. A variety of extra-pulmonary symptoms, such as arthralgias and myalgias, were common during the acute phase of the infection but did not last over time [65].
Radiotherapy in the era of COVID-19
Published in Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy, 2020
Andrea Lancia, Elisabetta Bonzano, Marta Bottero, Marta Camici, Francesco Catellani, Gianluca Ingrosso
On 9 January 2020, a novel Betacoronavirus was recognized as the cause of a cluster of several pneumonia cases in Wuhan, the capital city of the Hubei province in China. The World Health Organization (WHO) officially classified this new disease as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1] and the virus responsible was identified as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), due to the similarity of the structure of its receptor-binding gene region to that of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, which caused almost 800 deaths worldwide in the early 2000 s [2]. After a rapid spread across continents – with the only exception of Antarctica – COVID-19 has been declared as pandemic by the WHO [3]. As of 17 April 2020, Europe represents the most affected continent, with 1,070,851 of confirmed cases, mostly in countries like Spain, Italy, and Germany which have been particularly affected by the epidemic.
Is therapeutic anticoagulation improving renal outcomes in COVID-19?
Published in Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives, 2020
Sohaib Roomi, Waqas Ullah, Soban Farooq, Rehan Saeed, Shujaul Haq, Ammar Ali Ashfaq
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an enveloped, positive-stranded RNA virus that attaches to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2, the same receptor as SARS-CoV-1) normally present in the lungs, gastrointestinal tract and heart [3]. While a great deal remains unknown, at present it is believed that the infection spreads primarily through respiratory droplets except in case of aerosol-generating procedures [4]. About half of all people with the infection become symptomatic within 5 days, and of those that become symptomatic nearly all will have developed symptoms within 12 days [5]. Clinical manifestations range from mild disease to critical illness and common symptoms are fever, cough, dyspnea, sore throat and myalgias. A small subset of patients have exhibited gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and rarely dysgeusia [6]. A proposed mechanism of severe disease is misdirected innate and adaptive immunity that leads to reduced numbers of CD4+T cells, CD8+T cells, B cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and increased neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio [7,9].
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