COVID-19: An Overview of Virology, Mutations, Pathology, Epidemiology, Diagnosis, Preventions, and Treatments

Since the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was reported in December 2019, it has become a pandemic, which is one of the most severe global health crises. In 2022, more than 100 million people in around 210 countries have been reported to be infected and about two million people have been reported to have died because of COVID-19. Then, new variants continued to evolve and can threaten public health, international trade as well as activities of globalization. This chapter presents a literature review based on the articles published in English and indexed on authentic databases. Using the search tools, 73 out of 252 articles about COVID-19 and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were identified and the summary of all relevant studies has been discussed in this review work. It was found that during SARS-CoV-2 infection, various inclusive factors weaken immunity and thus decrease the ability of the body to fight against infectious diseases. Besides, SARS-CoV-2 undergoes certain mutations and the rate of mutation drives genomic variability and viral evolution, thereby enabling the virus to develop resistance against variable drug agents. Moreover, cell pyroptosis is a new type of inflammatory programmed cell death, which is reported in some COVID-19 cases. Despite recent success with vaccines, the discovery of proper therapeutics against this viral infection is still a major concern. Thus, to ameliorate the emergency, the utilization of repurposing drugs and/or traditional therapies is also reported across the world. The entire world is working together to deal with this pandemic and thus this review can be considered a handy and informative tool regarding the origin, evolution, virology, mutations, pathology, epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatments of COVID-19.