1. COVID-19 in clinical practice: a narrative synthesis
- Author
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M. Le Maréchal, Patrice Morand, Benjamin Nemoz, and Olivier Epaulard
- Subjects
China ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pediatrics ,Pneumonia, Viral ,Disease ,Antiviral Agents ,Article ,law.invention ,Betacoronavirus ,03 medical and health sciences ,Randomized controlled trial ,law ,Pandemic ,medicine ,Humans ,Mortality ,Practice Patterns, Physicians' ,Respiratory system ,Pandemics ,Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ,0303 health sciences ,biology ,SARS-CoV-2 ,030306 microbiology ,business.industry ,Mortality rate ,Public health ,COVID-19 ,biology.organism_classification ,COVID-19 Drug Treatment ,Europe ,Infectious Diseases ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,France ,Coronavirus Infections ,business ,Respiratory tract - Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in the city of Wuhan, China. The disease rapidly spread to the rest of China, to Southern-East Asia, then to Europe, America, and on to the rest of the world. COVID-19 is associated with a betacoronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. The virus penetrates the organism through the respiratory tract, conveyed by contaminated droplets. The main cell receptor targeted is the surface-bound ACE-2. As of the 26th July 2020, 15,200,000 COVID-19 cases and 650,000 deaths were reported worldwide. The mortality rate is estimated between 1.3 and 18.3%. The reproductive rate without any public health intervention is estimated around 4-5.1 in France. Most hospitalized patients for COVID-19 present respiratory symptoms, which in some cases is associated with fever. Up to 86% of admissions to ICU are related to acute respiratory failure. To date, no anti-viral therapy has proven its efficacy considering randomized trials. Only immunomodulatory treatments such as corticosteroids have shown to cause significant improvement in patient outcome.
- Published
- 2020