Animal coronaviruses and coronavirus disease 2019: Lesson for One Health approach

Abstract

Coronaviruses are a group of enveloped, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses that are broadly classified into alpha, beta, gamma, and delta coronavirus genera based on the viral genome. Coronavirus was not thought to be a significant problem in humans until the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002, but infections in animals, including pigs, cats, dogs, and poultry, have been problematic for a long time. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, drew special attention towards this virus once again. The intermediate host of this novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is yet to be determined, but it has a very close genomic relationship with the bat coronavirus (Bat-CoV), RaTG13 strain, and the pangolin coronaviruses. As veterinary medicine has a long-term experience dealing with coronaviruses, this could be helpful in better understanding and detecting the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and drive human medicine towards the development of vaccines and antiviral drugs through the collaborative and transdisciplinary approaches of One Health.

Keywords: Animal Coronaviruses, COVID-19, One Health, SARS-CoV-2.