Foreword

Zoonotic viruses are becoming a threat for mankind since they keep on jumping the species. The emergence of some of these viral infections that were seen in the 21^st century include Avian Influenza, Ebola, Nipah, Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). But none of these epidemics reached this magnitude as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This infection was first reported in December 2019 in Huanan seafood market, in the capital of China’s Hubei province, Wuhan. Later, the infection spread to different parts of the globe leading to the pandemic. It has affected millions of people across the globe and has led to death of more than a million affected individuals. It reminds us of the Swine Flu pandemic of 1918-19 when millions of people died, and the morbidity was quite high. COVID-19 is caused by a beta coronavirus that is named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) because of its similarity with SARS CoV and other bat coronaviruses.

In these unprecedented times of the Coronavirus pandemic which is gripping the whole world, the idea of writing a book on “The COVID-19 Pandemic: Epidemiology, Molecular Biology and Therapy” by Dr. Shama Parveen is a very timely effort and is going to provide a comprehensive account for the readers about this topic. The first chapter of the book gives a general introduction to COVID-19 and the topics that are discussed in the book. This book has all the relevant and important topics covered. The next 3 chapters deal with the biology of the SARS-CoV-2 i.e., morphology, genomic organization, proteins and viral replication; molecular characterization of major structural proteins of the pathogen and codon based characterization of S2 subunit of severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronaviruses. This knowledge about the structure of the virus and its genomics is needed to develop the tools for diagnosis, prevention and treatment. The next chapters are on global epidemiology and transmission of COVID-19; risk factors for severe disease; clinical manifestations, management, pathogenesis and host immune response to COVID-19 and current diagnostic approaches to detect the infection. These chapters are of practical importance and are useful for the public health workers as well as for clinicians and laboratory personnel. The last few chapters are focussed on treatment and prevention and they cover some important topics like natural compounds and drug repurposing candidates as potential therapeutic agents against this infection. Finally, the last chapter focusses on COVID-19 vaccine development: challenges and current scenario.

The efforts put in by Dr. Shama Parveen and her team in compiling all the knowledge in a such a short time is highly commendable. Although there has been an explosion of knowledge on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 and the WHO has named it as ‘Infodemic’, however a concise and accurate information which covers all the relevant fields in a single platform is lacking. This book will thus be extremely useful for scientists, researchers, doctors, epidemiologists and public health personnel as well students of Science and Virology.

Science and Medicine has made so much progress in the last 100 years and though this pandemic has brought the whole world on its knees, we must also appreciate the efforts of the scientific community in providing diagnostic assays for COVID-19 within 15 days and hopefully a vaccine within a year. With COVID-19, I believe it’s God's way of telling us: “Only Humans can Save Humans with Humanity and Knowledge”.