Title:Current Trends and Future Strategies for the Global Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic
Volume: 2
Issue: 11
Author(s): Ashutosh Chauhan, Ankit Kumar, Sandeep Goyal, Sunil Kumar Joshi and Deepak Kumar Semwal*
Affiliation:
- Department of Phytochemistry, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Uttarakhand Ayurved University, Harrawala, Dehradun-248001,India
Keywords:
Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, pandemic, quarantine, social distance.
Abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) might have originated
from the recombination of a Pangolin-CoV-like virus with a Bat-CoV-RaTG13-like virus and then
transmitted to a human at Wuhan city of China. On February 11, 2020, the WHO announced a
name for the new coronavirus disease as COVID-19. Finally, the WHO declared the novel coronavirus
outbreak a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Within a few months, SARS-CoV-2 had
spread across the world to 220 countries, areas or territories. The main objective of this work is to
review the existing knowledge about COVID-19, its updated status, available treatment procedures
and future challenges. The available literature based on the COVID-19 was thoroughly reviewed
and concise, evidence-based information was explored for the public interest. Various authentic
databases like PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar together with the official sites of some Govt.
Organizations were carefully searched for all relevant information about the current status of
COVID-19, including the published research on coronavirus. More than 68 million people are already
infected, including around 20% severely ill, with almost 1.5 million casualties due to this
virus which is expected to infect approximately 70% population worldwide. Currently, maximum
confirmed cases and death are reported in the USA. The epicentre of the pandemic was initially
shifted from China to Europe, then to the USA, Brazil and now India. In between, the understanding
of pathogenesis and mode of transmission has been developed; repurposing drugs are being
validated and the development of a new vaccine is underway. The study concludes that there is no
established treatment available for COVID-19, although 26 clinical and 139 preclinical trials are underway
to develop vaccines globally. Although three vaccines are at the advanced stage of development,
their efficacy and adverse effects are yet to be validated and recorded. Recently, the Pfizer
vaccine has been started for vaccination in emergency cases in England and Bahrain, and the United
States of America will start it soon. Meanwhile, prevention, rigorous global containment and
quarantine efforts are practiced worldwide to control its spread.
