Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, School of Pharmacy, International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 3 School of Pharmacy, Monash University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
  • 4 Prin. K. M. Kundnani College of Pharmacy, Mumbai, India
  • 5 Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India
Front Public Health, 2020;8:606129.
PMID: 33363098 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.606129

Abstract

Sudden outbreak of a new pathogen in numbers of pneumonic patients in Wuhan province during December 2019 has threatened the world population within a short period of its occurrence. This respiratory tract-isolated pathogen was initially named as novel coronavirus 2019 (nCoV-2019), but later termed as SARS-CoV-2. The rapid spreading of this infectious disease received the label of pandemic by the World Health Organization within 4 months of its occurrence, which still seeks continuous attention of the researchers to prevent the spread and for cure of the infected patients. The propagation of the disease has been recorded in 215 countries, with more than 25.5 million cases and a death toll of more than 0.85 million. Several measures are taken to control the disease transmission, and researchers are actively engaged in finding suitable therapeutics to effectively control the disease to minimize the mortality and morbidity rates. Several existing potential candidates were explored in the prevention and treatment of worsening condition of COVID-19 patients; however, none of the formulation has been approved for the treatment but used under medical supervision. In this article, a focus has been made to highlight on current epidemiology on the COVID-19 infection, clinical features, diagnosis, and transmission, with special emphasis on treatment measures of the disease at different stages of clinical research and the global economic influence due to this pandemic situation. Progress in the development on vaccine against COVID-19 has also been explored as important measures to immunize people. Moreover, this article is expected to provide information to the researchers, who are constantly combating in the management against this outbreak.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.