Review
COVID-19: Epidemiology, Evolution, and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molmed.2020.02.008 Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The basic reproductive number (R0) of 2019-nCoV is higher than R0 of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). COVID-19 presents with asymptomatic infections, with potential to propagate and perpetuate this epidemic.

  • 2019-nCoV isolated from patients shows limited sequence diversity, suggesting that the interspecies transmission event was very recent and that the source of the virus was focused, possibly a point-source event.

  • The amino acid sequence in the ACE2 receptor responsible for 2019-nCoV binding in farm animals and cats has only a few exchanges compared with the human receptor, suggesting that the species barrier for virus transmission is small.

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan turned into a public health emergency of international concern. With no antiviral drugs nor vaccines, and the presence of carriers without obvious symptoms, traditional public health intervention measures are significantly less effective. Here, we report the epidemiological and virological characteristics of the COVID-19 outbreak. Originated in bats, 2019-nCoV/ severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 likely experienced adaptive evolution in intermediate hosts before transfer to humans at a concentrated source of transmission. Similarities of receptor sequence binding to 2019-nCoV between humans and animals suggest a low species barrier for transmission of the virus to farm animals. We propose, based on the One Health model, that veterinarians and animal specialists should be involved in a cross-disciplinary collaboration in the fight against this epidemic.

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