COVID-19 pandemic: An epidemiological update

Epidemics and pandemics have been frightening the human chase again and again. SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and more have exposed their real face in the past, but with every such outbreak. The coronavirus outbreak came to light on December 31, 2019 and this COVID-19 pandemic is the defining global health crisis of our time and the greatest challenge.

As the global Covid-19 pandemic evolved, several countries faced a surge of acute and critically ill patients but had limited resources of space, staff, and stuff. In a relatively short period of time, the new coronavirus was recognized; the travel on COVID-19 has grown exponentially, from a single scientific report to over a few thousand publications, across numerous disciplines. The universality and clinical implications of our observations require further research to define. This pandemic has provoked an extraordinary requirement for digital health technology solutions and has exposed victorious solutions such as population screening, the pathway of the infection, projecting the use and allocation of resources, and designing targeted responses. In this scenario, the thrust area of research towards this "AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL UPDATE ON COVID -19" is welcomed.

The topics indicate some clinical areas of interest to COVID-19 researchers that have received attention due to the pandemic. It covers basic knowledge about respiratory conditions associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 epidemiology. These topics are complemented with chapters detailing the symptoms and biochemical mechanisms of novel coronavirus infections intended for readers with an advanced level of understanding of life sciences and medicine. Special topics such as the immune response to Sars-CoV-2, and, recombinant drugs for COVID-19, are also covered in this book. Each chapter is organized in a reader-friendly format and includes a list of references.

About the editor:

Dr.Manikandan Dhayalan, a research scientist in Small Molecule Drug Discovery Group, Anticancer Bioscience, Tianfu International Biotown, Chengdu, 610000, China, completed his Ph.D. (Chemistry) in December 2016 from Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. He has more than 7 years of research and teaching experience. He has published more than 25 international publications as both research and review papers and 2 textbooks for engineering graduate students. He has been an associate editor and a reviewer at several reputed publication companies, including Springer, Elsevier, and Bentham Science Publications, and an editorial board member of the journal of "Nanofabrication" from De Gruyter Publications. His research areas cover formulation and development of nanoformulations, liposomes-based siRNA targeted drug delivery, and polymeric micelles for targeted drug delivery, nanotechnology, green chemistry, plant biotechnology, and cancer biology.

Dr.S.U.Mohammed Riyaz is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the prestigious century-old college, namely, Islamiah College (Autonomous), Vaniyambadi, Tamil Nadu, India. He completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D., in biotechnology at the University of Madras, Guindy Campus, and Chennai. He completed his doctorate with specialization in molecular plant virology and genetic engineering. He has been awarded the Young Researcher Award by the Indian Virological Society, India, for his exceptional work in his doctorate. In 2016, he worked as a Senior Research Fellow in Plant Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering field under DBT Indo-Netherland Collaborative project at Bose Institute, Kolkata. Also, he worked as a project officer under BMGF funded project at IIT Madras in microbial genomics. In 2017-2019, he was awarded with the DST-SERB National Post-Doctoral Fellowship (Young Scientist), by the Govt. of India. He has authored many book chapters in Springer, Elsevier and Bentham Science Publications. He participated in and also acted as a resource person at many international and national conferences/ Symposiums /workshops /hands-on training, etc.

Dr.S. Parveen is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Dr.Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. She completed her B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Phil., and Ph.D., in chemistry at Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore Tamil Nadu, India. In addition to that, she has been awarded and completed a DST-Women Scientist project titled "Metal Hydrazones as Precursors for the Synthesis of Nano Crystalline Metal and Mixed Metal (Spinel) Oxides". Her broad area of research includes inorganic chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, X-ray crystallography, nanotechnology and so on. Her expertise lies in the research area of inorganic materials and nanotechnology as well as new techniques and methodologies in the current research field.