COVID-19, a threat to human and animals and its probable treatment options to mitigate this pandemic

ABSTRACT

In late December 2019, Wuhan city of Hubei province, China faced a newly emerged highly contagious viral zoonosis mainly characterized by respiratory illness, associated with pneumonia of unknown etiology which claimed many lives. The virus was then provisionally designated as 2019-nCoV by WHO and officially named as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) by International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). On 11 Feb 2020, WHO officially announced the name of disease as Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and declared the global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Initially, the disease was highly restricted to China but later it scared the world because hugenumber of new cases was reported from the entire world in a short period of 5 months. The dynamic spread of this contagious virus occurred due to exposure of individuals from infected aerosols, community contact and travelling of affected individual worldwide. Bats were thought to be the initial source of this pandemic but the intermediate host of this zoonosis is yet to be established. Many studies reported fever, dry cough, dyspnea, generalized weakness, anosmia, ageusia, muscle ache, rhinorrhea, headache, nausea, conjunctivitis, vomiting and diarrhoea along with many non-specific symptoms as clinical signs of the disease. Many treatment regimen including various antivirals, antibiotics, neutralizing antibodies, repurposed drugs and traditional medicines were being explored but the authorized effective treatment regimen is still awaited. This review is aimed to summarize the current scenario and status of probable treatment options available for ongoing illness caused by the novel coronavirus.