COVID-19, A Global Health Concern Requiring Science-Based Solution

Scientifically-based concrete action points to reduce the spread, lessen the impact, reduce the concerns of the wider population, and avoid further outbreaks for governments, organizations, and individuals are needed. On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in China picked up a media statement on the website of the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on cases of ‘viral pneumonia’ in Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China. The official name of the virus responsible for the outbreak is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS- CoV-2) according to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), and the disease it causes is named coronavirus disease (COVID-19). WHO, under the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), declared the emergence of COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and declared the outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020. WHO detailed a strategic response and preparedness plan1 and produced a Research and Development Blueprint research agenda2 to drive innovation in all aspects of outbreak control, from clinical case management to vaccine development, and developed a master plan for coordinating clinical trials that could lead to potential therapies for patients affected with the COVID-19 disease. Today, different countries and private laboratories are working to develop effective vaccines using state-of-the-art technology, and simultaneously assessing different treatments, including interferon and other pharmaceutical combinations being used to identify effective therapies. However, we are still trusting of reactive strategies to face this new threat for humanity but working in isolated silos.