OverviewOver the past few decades, we have seen several outbreaks of zoonotic coronavirus infections. These viruses have the potential of interspecies transmission leading to pathogenesis in humans. This particular respiratory coronavirus initially named 2019-nCOV, is known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Later, the World Health Organization (WHO) named this pandemicas Coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19). Individuals who were exposed to a wet market in Wuhan, China, were initially diagnosed with the disease. Similar to two previous outbreaks, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus [SARS-CoV] and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus [MERS-CoV], COVID-19 also causes respiratory illness |
Technical Details
The diagnostic testing for COVID-19includes threemain strategiessuch as(a) detection of thevirususing Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR)(b)detection of antibodies(IgM/IgG)to the virususing Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)and (c) imaging modalitieslike CT scan to identify theextent of lung involvement.Among the different clinical specimens, bronchoalveolar lavage (93%) has the highest positivity rate for SARS-CoV-2 followed by sputum (72%) and nasal swabs (63%).