Effect of COVID-19 on Immune System

Nemat Khansari

Department of Immunology, Medical University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Dr. Nemat Khansari, Department of Immunology, Medical University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pneumonia; RNA

Abstract

During December 2019, there were many reports of pneumonia type incidences caused by some unidentified viral strain outbroke in Wuhan, China. The disease clinically resembled some new type of viral pneumonia and Flu. After the isolation of the virus and several analyses of its genomic sequence, a novel strain of coronavirus was identified which was designated as ‘Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Related Coronavirus-2’ or SARS-CoV-2. The respiratory diseases were caused by this newly discovered ‘SARS-CoV-2’ which was later declared as ‘Coronavirus disease 2019’ (COVID-19) by World Health Organization.
COVID-19 virus is a member of a large group of viruses called corona viruses. These viruses are enveloped having single strand RNA. They called corona virus due to their crown-like morphology. They infect most of mammals and birds causing respiratory, enteric, hepatic, and neurologic diseases [1]. So far, seven species of corona viruses are known to cause human infection. Most of these human corona viruses have zoonotic origin. The four human corona viruses: HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-HKU1 are endemic and prevalent [2]. Middle East respiratory syndrome corona virus (MERS-CoV) and newly identified sever acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV2) are highly transmissible and pathogenic for human [3]. SARS-CoV2 has been identified as cause of corona virus disease 19 which is responsible for recent pandemic which occurred in 2019, hence the disease called COVID-19.

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