A Review on COVID-19: The Epidemiology, Transmission, Impact on Pregnancy and Reproductive Health and Its Prevention

At the end of 2019, a novel coronavirus was identified as the cause of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, a city in the Hubei Province of China. This results in an epidemic throughout China, followed by an increasing number of cases in other countries throughout the world. Currently, containment and mitigation measures have intensified and disease-modifying pharmacologic compounds and vaccines are being developed, COVID-19 continues to spread. The 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2) was shown to be a Beta-coronavirus (lineage B) closely related to SARS-CoV and SARS-related bat coronaviruses, and it has been reported to share a common receptor with SARS-CoV (ACE-2)At the time of this writing, the full magnitude of the public health impact poses a great threat to all humankind. More than 12 million patients have been infected globally and 564, 623 have died as of 10th July 2020. In this review, we highlight epidemiology, transmission, impact on pregnancy and reproductive health and future directions to control the spread of this fatal disease.