Open AccessCoronaviruses as the emerging threats for human health: should we be prepared for the future outbreaks of new coronaviruses?
Author(s) -
Reza Bahrami,
D Hashemi,
S Keshavarz Aziziraftar,
Parastoo Rahimi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
bratislavské lekárske listy/bratislava medical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.387
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1336-0345
pISSN - 0006-9248
DOI - 10.4149/bll_2020_120
Subject(s) - zoonosis , pandemic , outbreak , public health , transmission (telecommunications) , population , environmental health , coronavirus , one health , wildlife , covid-19 , virology , disease , biology , medicine , infectious disease (medical specialty) , ecology , nursing , electrical engineering , engineering , pathology
Recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in human communities as the first major zoonotic pandemics of the new millennium following the emergence of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV has increased our awareness about the future threat of viral zoonosis. Although, several studies have been conducted for better understanding of these viruses` evolution, and designing the effective anti-viral drugs and vaccines, the impact of human beings on occurrence of zoonotic diseases has been less considered and discussed. Improvement in global health resulted in human population growth, increasing demand for animal proteins, more exposures to wildlife, zoonotic and degradation of environment, which have facilitated interspecies transmissions. Since world population is increasing proportionately, the protection of public health against zoonotic diseases is a challenging task. It seems that intensified revision of human lifestyle is the best strategy to prevent the potential devastating future zoonotic pandemics. Herein, the characteristics of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, their transmission routs, their pathogenicity, the therapeutic and prevention approaches including of attempts for designing of effective prophylactic vaccines, anti-viral drugs, and the animal models that have been used for these studies have been reviewed (Ref. 134). Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, pandemic, zoonosis, SARS, MERS.