Advances in COVID-19: the virus, the pathogenesis, and evidence-based control and therapeutic strategies

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early December 2019, 81 174 confirmed cases and 3242 deaths have been reported in China as of March 19, 2020. The Chinese people and government have contributed huge efforts to combat this disease, resulting in significant improvement of the situation, with 58 new cases (34 were imported cases) and 11 new deaths reported on March 19, 2020. However, as of March 19, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop in 167 countries/territories outside of China, and 128 665 confirmed cases and 5536 deaths have been reported, with 16 498 new cases and 817 new deaths occurring in last 24 hours. Therefore, the world should work together to fight against this pandemic. Here, we review the recent advances in COVID-19, including the insights in the virus, the responses of the host cells, the cytokine release syndrome, and the therapeutic approaches to inhibit the virus and alleviate the cytokine storm. By sharing knowledge and deepening our understanding of the virus and the disease pathogenesis, we believe that the community can efficiently develop effective vaccines and drugs, and the mankind will eventually win this battle against this pandemic.

Keywords

COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 / pathogenesis / evidence-based medicine / control and therapeutic strategies

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81830093), the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) (No. 2019-I2M-1-003), Double First-Class Project (No. WF510162602) and State Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Overseas Expertise Introduction Project for Discipline Innovation (111 Project) (No. B17029). The study sponsors had no role in the design of the study; the data collection, analysis, or interpretation; the writing of the article; or the decision to submit for publication.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Guangbiao Zhou, Saijuan Chen, and Zhu Chen declare no conflict of interests. This manuscript does not involve a research protocol requiring approval by the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee.

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