Epidemiology and Treatment Options for COVID-19: A Review.

The Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a highly transmittable and pathogenic viral infection caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which emerged in Wuhan, China and spread around the world. As of 19 June 2020 data from the World Health Organization (WHO) have shown that more than 8457305 confirmed cases have been identified in more than 200 countries, with the number of cases cutting across all continents. On 30th January 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 as the sixth public health emergency of international concern. Genomic analysis revealed that SARS-CoV-2 is phylogenetically related to severe acute respiratory syndrome-like (SARS-like) bat viruses; therefore, bats could be the possible primary reservoir. The intermediate source of origin and transfer to humans is not known, however, the rapid human-to-human transfer has been confirmed widely via droplets or direct contact, and infection has been estimated to have mean incubation period of 6.4 days. Currently, controlling infection to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is the primary intervention being used. However, public health authorities should keep monitoring the situation closely, as the more we can learn about this novel virus and its associated outbreak, the better we can respond.

Improving yield performance of Pleurotus pulmonarius through hyphal anastomosis fusion of dikaryons.

High production and good quality are always the principal goals for agriculturally important crops, without the exception of mushrooms. P. pulmonarius is one of the commercially important edible mushrooms throughout the world. The yield performance improvement was carried out by cross bred P. pulmonarius with P. sapidus and P. ostreatus. The highest rate of 0.587 mm/days for spawn ramification and 53.33 % for percentage spawn productivity were obtained in hybrids LN LL910. The least day (11 and 12th) of the primodia mushroom sporophore were recorded in LL910 and LN 97 respectively, while longest day of 19th was recorded in wild type (NE 07). The highest biological efficiency (109.30 %) and production rate (3.77 %) obtained by LL910, while the least of 33.0 and 0.79 % were obtained by NE 07 for biological efficiency and production rate respectively. The morphological and molecular characterization of the hybrid strains established their true variation from their wild type. LL 910 (JF68088) is located at seventh subclusters from the root with boostrap value of 32 %, while only one parent (LAU 09: JF736658) out of the two has the close boostrap value of 43 % at the first subcluster to the root, with the other parent LAU 10 (JF736659) shows distance relationship after Blast. LN 97 (JF680992) is located at outgroup, while the parent strains NE 07 (boostrap value: 11 %) and LAU 09 (boostrap value: 44 %) located at tenth and second subclusters respectively. The results obtained from this study have shown the improved performance of the hybrids strain over wild type strains.