An Overview of COVID-19: Focus on Pharmacological Aspect

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which has been declared as Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) is one of the major disasters in the 21st century. Initially, COVID-19 is called as 2019 novel coronavirus by the Chinese researchers, and later, the disease was named as COVID-19 and the virus as SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. It is a single-stranded RNA virus that mainly enters the human cells by angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors like SARS-CoV. The important mode of transmission is through droplets and close contact with the infected people. As soon as the virus enters the human cells, it causes symptoms like cough, fever, headache, and fatigue after an incubation period of 5.2 days. There is no approved treatment or vaccine for this disease so far but many drugs have been tried from the experience obtained while treating SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. In this article, we discussed the pathogenesis, transmission, clinical features, challenges for control, diagnosis, and treatment advancements to overcome COVID-19.