General Aspects of COVID-19 Pandemic: Useful Information for Pharmacists

General Aspects of COVID-19 Pandemic: Useful Information for Pharmacists
Elham Azarnoosh,^1,*
1. Tehran University of Medical sciences
Introduction: Corona Virus 2019 (COVID19) was declared to be a novel contagious viral respiratory disease affecting the population of Wuhan, Hubei province, China on December 2019.it was first called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),but On February 12, 2020, WHO officially named the disease caused by the novel coronavirus as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).at first the morbidity was low but then as the number of infected patients increased, the number of countries struggling with COVID-19 outbreak increased as well and it was announced to be a global pandemic in need of extensive attention worldwide .although containment measures in China have reduced new cases by more than 90%, this is not the case elsewhere, and Iran is one of critical countries with more than 82211 reported cases and more than 5118 deaths until April 19th 2020 and it is not controlled yet and it is believed that this number is much more greater because a majority of patients experience mild symptoms and do not visit the doctor and another group are not tested with the diagnostic test kits so we can not say that they are positive and those who were contaminated with the virus but did not know due to lack of diagnostic methods and the delay in receiving diagnostic kits in Iran ,therefore these patients are not concluded in the statistics; seeing the statistics and understanding the crucial importance to overcome this pandemic , it is critical for the pharmacists to share information and enlighten the matter for the general population and other healthcare workers who ask about deferent aspects of COVID-19 because pharmacists play an important role as a link between doctors, health care providers and general population who people can trust to receive correct updated information. After knowing the corona virus, its diagnostics, its treatment and obtained information so far we can hope to find a cure and control the current corona virus crisis .
Methods: The article review was carried out between 2019 and 2020 following the outbreak of the novel COVID-19, inclusive using the following terms: coronavirus ,COVID-19,viral treatment and was preformed with usage of google scholar, Pubmed, Scopus, Elsevier, the lancet, world health organization guidelines, CDC and FDA websites and other similar data banks ,related to medical and pharmaceutical fields.
Results: By reviewing the literatures, a great source of information is provided regarding COVID-19 quiddity , structure , diagnoses, treatment and also further possible preventive, palliative and definitive therapy that are useful in managing this disease.
Conclusion: The more efforts scientists put in evaluating available information, the more closer we get to overcoming COVID-19 pandemic and this can be a lesson to prevent such catastrophic events and to be more prepared in future specially in third world countries such as Iran that has limited resources and also with a strategic plan that considers all aspects of COVID-19 ,Iran can manage the disease, therefore less lives will be lost and it can gain financial profits economically.
Keywords: corona disease, covid-19, contagious viral disease, pandemic