Opinion Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Sep 26, 2020; 8(18): 3920-3933
Published online Sep 26, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i18.3920
Special features of SARS-CoV-2 in daily practice
Ioannis A Charitos, Andrea Ballini, Lucrezia Bottalico, Stefania Cantore, Pier Carmine Passarelli, Francesco Inchingolo, Antonio D'Addona, Luigi Santacroce
Ioannis A Charitos, Department of Emergency and Urgency, National Poisoning Centre, Riuniti University Hospital of Foggia, Foggia 71122, Italy
Andrea Ballini, Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies and Biopharmaceutics, University Campus "E. Quagliariello", University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari 70125, Italy
Andrea Ballini, Department of Precision Medicine, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples 80138, Italy
Lucrezia Bottalico, Luigi Santacroce, Interdepartmental Research Center for Pre-Latin, Latin and Oriental Rights and Culture Studies (CEDICLO), University of Bari, Bari 70121, Italy
Stefania Cantore, Department of Interdisciplinary Medicine, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari 70124, Italy
Stefania Cantore, Sorriso & Benessere - Ricerca e Clinica S.R.L, Bari 70129, Italy
Pier Carmine Passarelli, Department of Head, Neck and Sense Organs, Division of Oral Surgery and Implantology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Francesco Inchingolo, Department of Interdisciplinary Medicine, Section of Dental Medicine, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari 70124, Italy
Antonio D'Addona, Department of Head and Neck and Sensory Organs, Division of Oral Surgery and Implantology, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS — Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma 00168, Italy
Luigi Santacroce, Ionian Department, Microbiology and Virology Laboratory, Policlinico University Hospital, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari 70124, Italy
Author contributions: Charitos IA, D’Addona A and Santacroce L contributed to conception and design of the review; Bottalico L, Cantore S and Passarelli PC contributed to writing and editing of the manuscript; Inchingolo F and Ballini A contributed to the bibliographic research; Ballini A and Santacroce L supervised the manuscript preparation and gave final approval of the version to be published; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Andrea Ballini, DDS, MSc, Research Scientist, Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies and Biopharmaceutics, University Campus "E. Quagliariello", University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, via Orabona 4, Bari 70125, Italy. andrea.ballini@uniba.it
Received: May 15, 2020
Peer-review started: May 15, 2020
First decision: June 4, 2020
Revised: July 31, 2020
Accepted: September 1, 2020
Article in press: September 1, 2020
Published online: September 26, 2020
Processing time: 129 Days and 7.8 Hours
Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (commonly known as SARS-CoV-2) is a novel coronavirus (designated as 2019-nCoV), which was isolated for the first time after the Chinese health authorities reported a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Optimal management of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 disease is evolving quickly and treatment guidelines, based on scientific evidence and experts’ opinions with clinical experience, are constantly being updated. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak as a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern". The total lack of immune protection brought about a severe spread of the contagion all over the world. For this reason, diagnostic tools, patient management and therapeutic approaches have been tested along the way, in the desperate race to break free from the widespread infection and its fatal respiratory complications. Current medical knowledge and research on severe and critical patients’ management and experimental treatments are still evolving, but several protocols on minimizing risk of infection among the general population, patients and healthcare workers have been approved and diffused by International Health Authorities.

Keywords: Pandemics; Viruses; SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19; Sepsis; Acute respiratory distress syndrome; Acute respiratory distress syndrome; Translational medicine; Clinical microbiology; Clinical biochemistry; Antivirals; Emergency and critical care medicine

Core Tip: We describe the main epidemiological data and clinical features of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) human disease, analyzing principal signs and symptoms of its clinical manifestation and its current morbidity and mortality ratio. We also focus on the most important International Guidelines concerning both the recommended tests for COVID-19’s laboratory diagnosis and the acute patient’s management in the Emergency Room, paying attention to the appropriate personal protective equipment that medical staff must wear while in contact with infectious patients and to the current pharmacological approaches for hospitalized and symptomatic patients, such as use of antiviral drugs, immune enhancers, stem cells, and plasma therapy.