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COVID-19 case fatalities surged during the month of March 2020 in Italy, reaching over 10,000 by 28 March 2020. This number exceeds the number of fatalities in China (3,301) recorded from January to March, even though the number of diagnosed cases was similar (85,000 Italy vs. 80,000 China). Case Fatality Rates (CFR) could be somewhat unreliable because the estimation of total case numbers is limited by several factors, including insufficient testing and limitations in test kits and materials, such as NP swabs and PPE for testers. Sero prevalence of SARSCoV- 2 antibodies may help in more accurate estimations of the total number of cases. Nevertheless, the disparity in the differences in the total number of fatalities between Italy and China suggests that investigation into several factors, such as demographics, sociological interactions, availability of medical equipment (ICU beds and PPE), variants in immune proteins (e.g., HLA, IFNs), past immunity to related CoVs, and mutations in SARS-CoV-2, could impact survival of severe COVID-19 illness survival and the number of case fatalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although viruses that belong to the coronavirus family are known since the 1930s, they only gained public health attention when they were discovered to be the causative agent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China in 2002-2003. On 22 September 2012, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Saudi Arabia announced the detection of what was described as a "rare pattern" of coronavirus respiratory infection in three individuals, two Saudi citizens and one person from the Gulf Region. Neither Saudi citizen survived the infection. Molecular analysis of the isolates showed that the virus belongs to the genus beta-coronavirus. It is not known if the new isolates are circulating in the population or has recently diverged. The emergence of these novel isolates that resulted in fatal human infection ascertains that health authorities all over the world must be vigilant for the possibility of new global pandemics due to novel viral infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

18 years ago, in 2002, the world was astonished by the appearance of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), supported by a zoonotic coronavirus, called SARS-CoV, from the Guangdong Province of southern China. After about 10 years, in 2012, another similar coronavirus triggered the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) in Saudi Arabia. Both caused severe pneumonia killing 774 and 858 people with 8700 cases of confirmed infection for the former, and 2494 for the latter, causing significant economic losses. 8 years later, despite the MERS outbreak remaining in certain parts of the world, at the end of 2019, a new zoonotic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and responsible of coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), arose from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. It spread rapidly and to date has killed 3,242 persons with more than 81,000 cases of infection in China and causing over 126,000 global cases and 5,414 deaths in 166 other countries around the world, especially Italy. SARS-CoV-2 would seem to have come from a bat, but the intermediate reservoir continues to be unknown. Nonetheless, as for SARS-CoV and MERS CoV, the Spillover effect linked to animal-human promiscuity, human activities including deforestation, illegal bush-trafficking and bushmeat, cannot be excluded. Recently, however, evidence of inter-human only transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been accumulated and thus, the outbreak seems to be spreading by human-to-human transmission throughout a large part of the world. Herein we will provide with an update on the main features of COVID-19 and suggest possible solutions how to halt the expansion of this novel pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of 28 February 2020, Italy had 888 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections, with most cases in Northern Italy in the Lombardia and Veneto regions. Travel-related cases were the main source of COVID-19 cases during the early stages of the current epidemic in Italy. The month of February, however, has been dominated by two large clusters of outbreaks in Northern Italy, south of Milan, with mainly local transmission the source of infections. Contact tracing has failed to identify patient zero in one of the outbreaks. As of 28 February 2020, twenty-one cases of COVID-19 have died. Comparison between case fatality rates in China and Italy are identical at 2.3. Additionally, deaths are similar in both countries with fatalities in mostly the elderly with known comorbidities. It will be important to develop point-of-care devices to aid clinicians in stratifying elderly patients as early as possible to determine the potential level of care they will require to improve their chances of survival from COVID-19 disease., Competing Interests: No Conflict of Interest is declared, (Copyright (c) 2020 Rossella Porcheddu, Caterina Serra, David Kelvin, Nikki Kelvin, Salvatore Rubino.)

Competing Interests: No Conflict of Interest is declared

Background: Understanding the pathogenesis of influenza infection is a key factor leading to the prevention and control of future outbreaks. Pandemic 2009 Influenza H1N1 infection, although frequently mild, led to a severe and fatal form of disease in certain cases that make its virulence nature debatable. Much effort has been made toward explaining the determinants of disease severity; however, no absolute reason has been established., Results: This study presents the heterogeneous virulence of clinically similar strains of pandemic 2009 influenza virus in human alveolar adenocarcinoma cells and mice. The viruses were obtained from patients who were admitted in a local hospital in China with a similar course of infection and recovered. The A/Nanchang/8002/2009 and A/Nanchang/8011/2009 viruses showed efficient replication and high lethality in mice while infection with A/Nanchang/8008/2009 was not lethal with impaired viral replication, minimal pathology and modest proinflammatory activity in lungs. Sequence analysis displayed prominent differences between polymerase subunits (PB2 and PA) of viral genomes that might correlate with their different phenotypic behavior., Conclusions: The study confirms that biological heterogeneity, linked with the extent of viral replication, exists among pandemic H1N1 strains that may serve as a benchmark for future investigations on influenza pathogenesis.