Immunology and Pathogenesis of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The whole world is facing a pandemic situation ever since the outbreak of SARSCoV-2 in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) presents a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations ranging from asymptomatic to severe pneumonia-like situations followed by multisystem failure leading to the death of the individual. Studies from the past coronavirus outbreaks, the SARS, and MERS-CoV, have helped us understand the current SARS-CoV2 to a large extent. Once the host encounters the virus, an innate immune response is generated which subsequently leads to activation of the adaptive immune response to eliminate the virus. However, this immune response is misbalanced in some individuals and is the main factor causing the pathological manifestation of COVID-19. In this chapter, we have addressed the humoral and cellular immune changes induced by the virus along with the role of cytokine storm in disease progression. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.