tion. The high number of cases around the world led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic situation on March 11, 2020. Although viruses have a variety of… Click to show full abstract
tion. The high number of cases around the world led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic situation on March 11, 2020. Although viruses have a variety of arrangements and compositions, they are generally composed of genetic material (DNA or RNA), a protein shell, and a lipid bilayer. Detection approaches focus either on the proteins that form the shell or on the genetic material and its sequence of nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA and RNA. The first publications on SARSCoV-2 identified it as an RNA-based virus of the order Nidovirales, the family Coronaviridae, and the genus Betacoronavirus. Although many coronavirus infections in humans cause only mild symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 was determined to be similar to other aggressive strains, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The similarities among SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV provided scientists with a strong indication of where to start working. Even before samples from patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 became available, Christian Drosten, director at the Institute of Virology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital, together with an international research group, published a WHO-endorsed diagnostic protocol for SARS-CoV-2 based on its similarities to other viruses.1 Currently, new information about SARSCoV-2 continues to be published daily. To
               
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