Special features of SARS-CoV-2 in daily practice

Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (commonly known as SARS-CoV-2) is a novel coronavirus (designated as 2019-nCoV), which was isolated for the first time after the Chinese health authorities reported a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Optimal management of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 disease is evolving quickly and treatment guidelines, based on scientific evidence and experts’ opinions with clinical experience, are constantly being updated. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak as a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern". The total lack of immune protection brought about a severe spread of the contagion all over the world. For this reason, diagnostic tools, patient management and therapeutic approaches have been tested along the way, in the desperate race to break free from the widespread infection and its fatal respiratory complications. Current medical knowledge and research on severe and critical patients’ management and experimental treatments are still evolving, but several protocols on minimizing risk of infection among the general population, patients and healthcare workers have been approved and diffused by International Health Authorities.

Potential beneficial role of probiotics on the outcome of COVID-19 patients: An evolving perspective

“…Since the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms, in many cases in those with a severe prognosis, we can hypothesize that SARS-Cov-2 interacts with the gut microbiota via the gut/lung axis. Contemporary, we believe it could be responsible of neuropsychiatric and cutaneous manifestations through the gut/brain and gut/skin and skin/brain axes [ 8 , 12 ]. Microbial metabolites, SCAFs are able to inhibit the myelin synthesis in the prefrontal cortex, inhibiting the action of the transcription factor Sox10 in oligodendrocytes.…”

“…Particularly, we think that SARS-CoV-2 infection course could influenced by many factors, including intestinal dysbiosis. We analyze in this document available data on the association between SARS-CoV-2 and human microbiota [ 12 , 13 ].…”

New Insights in Laboratory Testing for COVID-19 Patients: Looking for the Role and Predictive Value of Human epididymis secretory protein 4 (HE4) and the Innate Immunity of the Oral Cavity and Respiratory Tract

“…Increase in D-Dimer levels and abnormal D-dimer levels are associated with poor prognosis [34,35]. According to others authors, PCT and platelet count may be potential predictors of disease severity and PCT may be considered a secondary bacterial infection marker [36][37][38].…”

COVID-19 and COVID-like Patients: A Brief Analysis and Findings of Two Deceased Cases

“…Therefore, we do not exclude that among COVID-like patients may remain someone that was eventually infected by SARS-CoV-2 but resulted negative to the swab screen. Nevertheless, clinical and laboratory outcomes showed substantial similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-like patients which sharing pathophysiological features related to specific traits of severe and interstitial pneumonia with clinical presentation greatly resembling each other's [4], [5].…”

“…The main issue is related to the low specificity of the procedure in verifying the presence of both false negatives and false positives; the second issue is due to mistakes related to the manual procedure by the health personnel; and third the possibility that virus has moved downward and settled within lungs, generating negative swab results. In addition, specimen tested without proper internal control could bias the results [2], [3], [4].…”