IMR Press / FBL / Volume 28 / Issue 10 / DOI: 10.31083/j.fbl2810273
Open Access Review
SARS-CoV-2: The Virus, Its Biology and COVID-19 Disease-Counteracting Possibilities
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1 Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology, Department of Biochemistry, Chemistry & Pharmacy, Goethe-University, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
*Correspondence: rolf.marschalek@em.uni-frankfurt.de (Rolf Marschalek)
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2023, 28(10), 273; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbl2810273
Submitted: 25 April 2023 | Revised: 27 June 2023 | Accepted: 5 July 2023 | Published: 31 October 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Immunology in COVID-19 Disease)
Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Since the end of 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus started to spread in different countries, leading to a world-wide pandemia, with today’s infection numbers of more than 690 million and with a case fatality rate of more than 6.9 million. In addition, about 65 million patients suffer from post/long-Covid syndromes after having infections with the SARS-CoV-2 virus or variants thereof. This review highlights the biology of the virus, summarizes our knowledge of some of the viral mechanisms that counteract our immune responses, and finally also discusses the different vaccines and their specific safety profiles. Also, the possibility to fight this virus with recently available drugs (Veklury, Lagevrio and Paxlovid) will be discussed. All these data clearly argue that SARS-CoV-2 variants still exhibit a dangerous potential—although with a lower case fatality rate—and that vaccination in combination with drug intake upon infection may help to lower the risk of developing chronic or temporary autoimmune diseases.

Keywords
SARS-CoV-2
interferon pathway
immunology
vaccines
safety issues
small molecules
Funding
Ma 1876/12-1/DFG
2018.070.2/Wilhelm Sander foundation
Figures
Fig. 1.
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