Coronavirus - Past and Present

Abstract

            Coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by a new mutant strain of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) which is an ongoing global health pandemic. However, you'll have first become conversant in the term coronavirus during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002. Here we summarize important distinguishing characteristics concerning both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV2. SARS-Cov2, which is caused by the new novel coronavirus, has been highlighting the news lately. The virus that causes SARS is entitled as SARS-CoV, while the virus that causes COVID-19 is entitled as SARS-CoV-2. SARS was declared a global pandemic in late 2002 in China, when a healthcare practitioner got infected with a virus and unknowingly travelled to Hong Kong, with rapid spread to other nearby countries by international travelling of people. But due to many other factors, SARS was restrained in around 30 countries with an estimated mortality rate of 10% by the end of the pandemic in mid-2003. The focal point of this current novel coronavirus outbreak is within Wuhan city of China. Animal host act as a reservoir for novel coronavirus and it can infect human by crossing this barrier. Hence, a seafood wholesale market in the city was thought to be one among the places from where the transmission of COVID-19 initiated. As we go further in this article, we will come across the differences in genomic structure, pathogenicity, clinical features and lab investigations among SARS-CoV2 and SARS-CoV.