CONCLUDING REMARKS
Several years after the global SARS epidemic, the current SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic has served as a reminder of how novel pathogens can rapidly emerge and spread through the human population and eventually cause severe public health crises. Further research should be conducted to establish animal models for SARS-CoV-2 to investigate replication, transmission dynamics, and pathogenesis in humans. This may help develop and evaluate potential therapeutic strategies against zoonotic CoV epidemics. Present trends suggest the occurrence of future outbreaks of CoVs due to changes in the climate, and ecological conditions may be associated with human-animal contact. Live-animal markets, such as the Huanan South China Seafood Market, represent ideal conditions for interspecies contact of wildlife with domestic birds, pigs, and mammals, which substantially increases the probability of interspecies transmission of CoV infections and could result in high risks to humans due to adaptive genetic recombination in these viruses (323–325).
The COVID-19-associated symptoms are fever, cough, expectoration, headache, and myalgia or fatigue. Individuals with asymptomatic and atypical clinical manifestations were also identified recently, further adding to the complexity of disease transmission dynamics. Atypical clinical manifestations may only express symptoms such as fatigue instead of respiratory signs such as fever, cough, and sputum. In such cases, the clinician must be vigilant for the possible occurrence of asymptomatic and atypical clinical manifestations to avoid the possibility of missed diagnoses.
The present outbreak caused by SARS-CoV-2 was, indeed, expected. Similar to previous outbreaks, the current pandemic also will be contained shortly. However, the real question is, how are we planning to counter the next zoonotic CoV epidemic that is likely to occur within the next 5 to 10 years or perhaps sooner? Our knowledge of most of the bat CoVs is scarce, as these viruses have not been isolated and studied, and extensive studies on such viruses are typically only conducted when they are associated with specific disease outbreaks. The next step following the control of the COVID-19 outbreak in China should be focused on screening, identification, isolation, and characterization of CoVs present in wildlife species of China, particularly in bats. Both in vitro and in vivo studies (using suitable animal models) should be conducted to evaluate the risk of future epidemics. Presently, licensed antiviral drugs or vaccines against SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 are lacking. However, advances in designing antiviral drugs and vaccines against several other emerging diseases will help develop suitable therapeutic agents against COVID-19 in a short time. Until then, we must rely exclusively on various control and prevention measures to prevent this new disease from becoming a pandemic.