ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Review Article | Open Access

Ran Jing1, Rama Rao Vunnam2, Yuhong Yang1, Adam Karevoll1 and Srinivas Rao Vunnam1

1University of Nebraska College of Medicine, 985520 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, USA.
2Penn State College of Medicine, 700 HMC Crescent Road, Hershey, PA 17033, USA.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2020;14(suppl 1):733-740 | Article Number: 6367
Received: 09/05/2020 | Accepted: 21/05/2020 | Published: 23/05/2020
Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome virus (SARS-CoV-2), a novel coronavirus first discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019 causes the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19), which presents with a wide range of clinical symptoms from mild or moderate to severe and critical illnesses. With the continuing transmission of the virus worldwide and the rapidly evolving situation globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March. Currently, there is no proven specific treatment for this potentially deadly disease beyond supportive care. However, a massive effort has been put globally into the investigation of medications and other interventional measures to fight COVID-19. Convalescent plasma therapy from recovered patients has recently drawn considerable interest. Several alternative medical treatments, although evidence of their efficacy still lacking, have also gained popularity, especially in countries with such traditions such as India and China. Rapid repurposing of drugs for COVID-19 has revealed a few promising candidate antiviral agents, but further research, especially high quality randomized controlled trials, will be needed to prove their efficacy and safety in the clinical use to treat COVID-19. Vaccine development has been the imperative task in the battle against SARS-CoV-2. While clinical trials have been launched for several candidate vaccines, research on COVID-19 vaccines is still at an early stage. So far, optimized supportive care remains the best practice against COVID-19.

Keywords

COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Supportive Care, Clinical Trials, Vaccine

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