Coronavirus Disease of the 2019 (Covid-19): Virology, Epidemiology, Pathogenesis, Clinical Presentation, Diagnosis and Treatment

On December 31, 2019, China alerted WHO to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan. This is a city with about 11 million people located in the central Hubei province. The virus was unknown when it was reported. Few weeks after the outbreak, the coronavirus pneumonia became an epidemic at the epicenter of the disease. It was discovered those infected during the period were those working at the Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The market was shut down on January 1, 2020. Since the epidemic, The COVID-19 outbreak has reached every continent on Earth becoming a global pandemic. Wuhan City experienced the worst of the initial outbreak but the trend has now shifted to several other countries and major cities are experiencing the massive health, economic, social and political effects of the coronavirus. Americas (United States) and Europe (Russia, Italy, Spain, UK and Germany) are the most hit regions. As of June 2, 2020, the global confirmed cases were reported by the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) as 6,245,352 cases with global death recorded as 376,427 deaths.