Symptomatology and Clinical Features of Human COVID-19

Symptomatology and Clinical Features of Human COVID-19

Mohamed Echchakery, Souad El Mouahid, Soraia El Baz, Maryam Mountassir, Ahmed Taoufik Hakkoum, Raymond Klevor, Ansumana Mohammed Keita, Said El Hizazi, Draoui Ahmed, Nadia Zouhairi, Abdelmohcine Aimrane, Abdelhafid Benksim, Redouane Chatoui, Yassin Zemrani, Asmae Lamrani Hanchi, Mohamed Alouani
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8225-1.ch003
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Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was identified at the end of December 2019 in China. Symptoms of COVID-19 can appear after an incubation phase of the virus of 2 to 14 days, the most common being fever, cough, and asthenia. Other specific symptoms may include shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, muscle pain, sore throat, chills, loss of smell or sensation, chest pain, headache, nausea, rash, diarrhea, and vomiting. The severity of these symptoms can be mild or even extreme causing serious damage to several organs, directly and indirectly, namely pulmonary, renal, hepatic, cardiac, digestive, neurological. Some people have only mild symptoms, while others are asymptomatic. Seniors or those at risk for certain chronic diseases, such as massive obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, immune system abnormalities, and liver disease are more susceptible to COVID-19 and can develop more serious and fatal complications.
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Introduction

In December 2019, an outbreak of severe pneumonia cases began in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China in patients with severe unexplained lung disease (Zhu et al.,2019). In early January 2020, a new betacoronavirus, later the World Health Organization (WHO)named severe acute respiratorysyndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a new type of coronavirus, was isolated and identified from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples. SARS-CoV-2 causes an acute respiratory infection as in the case of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, with fever, cough and dyspnea; pneumonia is a serious manifestation that can rapidly progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (WHO, 2020a), was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020 (WHO, 2020a; WHO, 2020b).The impacts of this pandemic on health, both at the individual and global levels, as well as the impacts on other spheres of human endeavor are cumulatively being evaluated. While other human coronavirus outbreaks have occurred, the recent virus seems to have been favored by the peculiar political atmosphere, mass misinformation and global unpreparedness.

The human immune system is a perfect system that combines a variety of cells and mediators to provide protective immunity against infectious agents. Its intervention can be with early reactions, as in innate immunity and, later, in a set of cellular and humoral responses (adaptive immunity), both decisive in the defense against intracellular germs, such as SARS-CoV-2 (Shah et al., 2020).

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