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COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related?
BACKGROUND: The 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a new human coronavirus which is spreading with epidemic features in China and other Asian countries; cases have also been reported worldwide. This novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is associated with a respiratory illness that may lead to se...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7176926/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32234451 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2020.03.026 |
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author | Petrosillo, N. Viceconte, G. Ergonul, O. Ippolito, G. Petersen, E. |
author_facet | Petrosillo, N. Viceconte, G. Ergonul, O. Ippolito, G. Petersen, E. |
author_sort | Petrosillo, N. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a new human coronavirus which is spreading with epidemic features in China and other Asian countries; cases have also been reported worldwide. This novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is associated with a respiratory illness that may lead to severe pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Although related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), COVID-19 shows some peculiar pathogenetic, epidemiological and clinical features which to date are not completely understood. AIMS: To provide a review of the differences in pathogenesis, epidemiology and clinical features of COVID-19, SARS and MERS. SOURCES: The most recent literature in the English language regarding COVID-19 has been reviewed, and extracted data have been compared with the current scientific evidence about SARS and MERS epidemics. CONTENT: COVID-19 seems not to be very different from SARS regarding its clinical features. However, it has a fatality rate of 2.3%, lower than that of SARS (9.5%) and much lower than that of MERS (34.4%). The possibility cannot be excluded that because of the less severe clinical picture of COVID-19 it can spread in the community more easily than MERS and SARS. The actual basic reproductive number (R(0)) of COVID-19 (2.0–2.5) is still controversial. It is probably slightly higher than the R(0) of SARS (1.7–1.9) and higher than that of MERS (<1). A gastrointestinal route of transmission for SARS-CoV-2, which has been assumed for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, cannot be ruled out and needs further investigation. IMPLICATIONS: There is still much more to know about COVID-19, especially as concerns mortality and its capacity to spread on a pandemic level. Nonetheless, all of the lessons we learned in the past from the SARS and MERS epidemics are the best cultural weapons with which to face this new global threat. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7176926 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-71769262020-04-23 COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? Petrosillo, N. Viceconte, G. Ergonul, O. Ippolito, G. Petersen, E. Clin Microbiol Infect Article BACKGROUND: The 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a new human coronavirus which is spreading with epidemic features in China and other Asian countries; cases have also been reported worldwide. This novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is associated with a respiratory illness that may lead to severe pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Although related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), COVID-19 shows some peculiar pathogenetic, epidemiological and clinical features which to date are not completely understood. AIMS: To provide a review of the differences in pathogenesis, epidemiology and clinical features of COVID-19, SARS and MERS. SOURCES: The most recent literature in the English language regarding COVID-19 has been reviewed, and extracted data have been compared with the current scientific evidence about SARS and MERS epidemics. CONTENT: COVID-19 seems not to be very different from SARS regarding its clinical features. However, it has a fatality rate of 2.3%, lower than that of SARS (9.5%) and much lower than that of MERS (34.4%). The possibility cannot be excluded that because of the less severe clinical picture of COVID-19 it can spread in the community more easily than MERS and SARS. The actual basic reproductive number (R(0)) of COVID-19 (2.0–2.5) is still controversial. It is probably slightly higher than the R(0) of SARS (1.7–1.9) and higher than that of MERS (<1). A gastrointestinal route of transmission for SARS-CoV-2, which has been assumed for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, cannot be ruled out and needs further investigation. IMPLICATIONS: There is still much more to know about COVID-19, especially as concerns mortality and its capacity to spread on a pandemic level. Nonetheless, all of the lessons we learned in the past from the SARS and MERS epidemics are the best cultural weapons with which to face this new global threat. European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2020-06 2020-03-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7176926/ /pubmed/32234451 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2020.03.026 Text en © 2020 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Petrosillo, N. Viceconte, G. Ergonul, O. Ippolito, G. Petersen, E. COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? |
title | COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? |
title_full | COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? |
title_fullStr | COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? |
title_full_unstemmed | COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? |
title_short | COVID-19, SARS and MERS: are they closely related? |
title_sort | covid-19, sars and mers: are they closely related? |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7176926/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32234451 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmi.2020.03.026 |
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