COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan City in December 2019 and spread throughout Hubei Province and other parts of China. After causing significant morbidity and mortality in China, by February 2020, it had spread to numerous other countries, infecting millions of people and causing a large number of deaths across the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic put a burden on almost all areas of the world including healthcare systems, education, industry, travel, etc. The pandemic revealed the vulnerability of the world's healthcare systems and affected healthcare personnel significantly. The virus is able to attack not only the respiratory tract, but almost all the organs including the brain. Impacts on gut biota have also been noticed. The virus has caused both morbidity and mortality in humans without any geographical, cultural, or religious barriers. The emergence of new variants due to mutations in the virus has aggravated the problem. While the delta variant brought a second wave and killed a large number of people due to various factors such as lowering of saturated oxygen in blood and other physiological emergencies, the omicron variant proved to be less lethal. Though the pandemic has subsided, the emergence of the subvariants BA1 and BA2 and now their hybrids has started to increase the number of cases at exponential levels and has forced new lockdown measures in places such as China. As the conditions laid down to combat the pandemic have been relaxed, the virus may reach other countries and cause additional countries to resort to lockdown again.

COVID-19 became the focus of the scientific community with the aim of developing new drugs, repurposing available drugs to be used against the virus, and developing a series of vaccines in a short time. The mild effect of omicron might have been due to the extensive vaccination programmes carried out in various countries. However, there is genuine fear that newly emerging variants may evade the immune system and cause damage to the body.

This book highlights the impact of COVID-19 on science, industry, and healthcare systems. The chapters included in the volume come from dedicated experts belonging to basic sciences, biotechnology, pharmaceutical sciences, and other fields of sciences. These include discussions on how the virus evolves and attacks various organs in the body. A separate chapter explains the emergence of various strains of virus. The preparedness of hospitals and healthcare workers as well as different agencies such as DRDO to face the challenges posed by virus is also discussed. The way scientists and technologists developed new techniques to detect and control the virus have also been highlighted including a chapter on the development of vaccines to control the pandemic.

This book is a key resource for students, teachers, medical personnel, administrators, and the public as a whole.


Chapter 1: Corona Virus (COVID-19) Pandemics And Its Multiple Impacts On Health, Education And Economy

R C Sobti and Aastha Sobti

Chapter 2: Lessons Learnt From COVID 19- Health, Education And Environment

Tejinder Kaur, Manish Thakur and RC Sobti

Chapter 3: Science And Research During Pandemic: COVID-19

R. C. Sobti, Archna Narula, Ahalya Naidu

Chapter 4: Molecular Biology Lessons Learnt From The Spiky Intruder

Dr Sikander S Gill, Dr Rajwant K Gill, and Dr R.C. Sobti

Chapter 5: The Mystery Virus, SARS-COV-2 And Its Dynamics

Anita Yadav, Shivji Malviya and Sandeep K. Malhotra

Chapter 6: The Molecular Biology Of Sars-cov-2 And Its Evolving Variants

Zheng Yao Low, Ashley Jia Wen Yip and Sunil K. Lal

Chapter 7: COVID 19: Pathology, Clinical Implications And Prevention

Dr Varidmala Jain and Jitendra Kumar Jain

Chapter 8: COVID-19 And Comorbidities

Sanjay K. Bhadada, Rimesh Pal

Chapter 9: Immunology Of COVID-19

Taru Goyal, Malavika Lingeswaran, Prasenjit Mitra, Sanjeev Misra, Praveen Sharma

Chapter 10: Extrapulmonary Manifestations: 'After-effects' Of COVID-19 Post Recovery

Shiv Bharadwaj, Nikhil Kirtipal. R C Sobti

Chapter 11: Update of COVID 19 Treatments

Vinant Bhargava ,Gaurav Bhandari, Nikita Pawar, Preeti Meena

Chapter 12: Combating Corona Virus Sars-cov-2: Vaccination Strategies

Vikas Kushwaha and Neena Capalash

Chapter 13: Preclinical Safety Assessment Of Vaccines Developed Against Sars-cov-2 Or COVID-19: Recent Updates

Shubham Adhikary, Harpal S. Buttar, Hardeep Singh Tuli, Ginpreet Kaur

Chapter 14: Mucormycosis In COVID-19 Patients

Guneet Kaur, Samander Kaushik, Sulochana Kaushik, Sandeep Singh, Gagandeep Singh and Immaculata Xess and Pankaj Seth

Chapter 15: Mucormycosis - An Emerging Opportunistic Infection In The Post-COVID Era

Ashok Gupta

Chapter 16: COVID-19: Role Of DRDO In Its Containment Through Technology

KP Mishra and AK Singh

Chapter 17: Food And Nutrition Security As Preventive And Therapeutic Healthcare: Now And Beyond COVID-19 Pandemic

Geeta Mehra, Rajesh Mehra

Chapter 18: Potential Role Of Natural Essential Oils In The Management Of Respiratory Distress In Patients Infected With Sars- Cov 2: An Overview

Sukender Kumar, Manish Garg Sumander Kaushik and H S Buttar

Chapter 19: Focusing On Traditional Herbal Medicines To Accelerate Research In Biomedical Sciences In The Era Of COVID-19

M. C. Sidhu and A. S. Ahluwalia

Chapter 20: Role Of Physiotherapy In COVID-19 Pandemic

Suraj Kumar, Gowrishanker Potturi and Rajeeb Kumar Sahu

Chapter 21: India's Healthcare Scenario During Year 2020

Prakash S Lohar

Chapter 22: Healthcare In COVID-19 Era Healthcare In COVID-19 Era

Rupinder Kaur

Chapter 23: Role Of The World Health Organisation In Combating The COVID-19 Pandemic

Brijesh

Chapter 24: Environmental Safeguards In Running A Level 3 COVID 19 Facility: The SGPGIMS Way

Rajesh Harsvardhan