Abstract
The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which was isolated in January 2020, emerged as a result of natural evolution and has already infected millions of people around the world due to its extensive human-to-human transmission capacity. Highlighting the clinical manifestations, pathology and immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 infection process, this review study was conducted through a comprehensive bibliographic search of academic papers that are available online at the following databases Science Direct, Pub Med, ACS Publications, Nature, BioRxiv and MedRxiv. According to the analyzed works, people infected with SARS-CoV-2 may display fever and dry cough as the main clinical symptoms and they may also present breathing difficulty, muscle pain (myalgia), chills, lack of appetite, fatigue, sore throat, altered consciousness, diarrhea, vomiting, nasal discharge and syncope. When considering the immune status of patients with COVID-19, it is highlighted that hypercytokinemia contributes to the severity that can even result in death. Lymphopenia is the most frequent prognosis described in cases of COVID-19. Thus, a detailed understanding of the specific inflammatory pathways that result in the pathology of COVID-19 is crucial for the immediate development of clinical therapeutic approaches.
Keywords: COVID-19, hypercytokinemia, immune status, novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, pneumonia.
Graphical Abstract