West China School of Public Health and West China Fourth Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Department of Communication Studies, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 90802, USA.
Infect Dis Poverty. 2020 Mar 17;9(1):29. doi: 10.1186/s40249-020-00646-x.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China beginning in December 2019. As of 31 January 2020, this epidemic had spread to 19 countries with 11 791 confirmed cases, including 213 deaths. The World Health Organization has declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
A scoping review was conducted following the methodological framework suggested by Arksey and O'Malley. In this scoping review, 65 research articles published before 31 January 2020 were analyzed and discussed to better understand the epidemiology, causes, clinical diagnosis, prevention and control of this virus. The research domains, dates of publication, journal language, authors' affiliations, and methodological characteristics were included in the analysis. All the findings and statements in this review regarding the outbreak are based on published information as listed in the references.
Most of the publications were written using the English language (89.2%). The largest proportion of published articles were related to causes (38.5%) and a majority (67.7%) were published by Chinese scholars. Research articles initially focused on causes, but over time there was an increase of the articles related to prevention and control. Studies thus far have shown that the virus' origination is in connection to a seafood market in Wuhan, but specific animal associations have not been confirmed. Reported symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, pneumonia, headache, diarrhea, hemoptysis, and dyspnea. Preventive measures such as masks, hand hygiene practices, avoidance of public contact, case detection, contact tracing, and quarantines have been discussed as ways to reduce transmission. To date, no specific antiviral treatment has proven effective; hence, infected people primarily rely on symptomatic treatment and supportive care.
There has been a rapid surge in research in response to the outbreak of COVID-19. During this early period, published research primarily explored the epidemiology, causes, clinical manifestation and diagnosis, as well as prevention and control of the novel coronavirus. Although these studies are relevant to control the current public emergency, more high-quality research is needed to provide valid and reliable ways to manage this kind of public health emergency in both the short- and long-term.
自 2019 年 12 月以来，湖北省武汉市发生了一种呼吸道疾病的爆发，现已被确认为新型冠状病毒疾病（COVID-19）。截至 2020 年 1 月 31 日，该疫情已蔓延至 19 个国家，确诊病例 11791 例，死亡 213 例。世界卫生组织宣布其为国际关注的突发公共卫生事件。
本研究采用 Arksey 和 O'Malley 提出的方法学框架进行了范围综述。在本综述中，分析并讨论了截至 2020 年 1 月 31 日前发表的 65 篇研究文章，以更好地了解该病毒的流行病学、病因、临床诊断、预防和控制。分析中包括研究领域、发表日期、期刊语言、作者所属机构以及方法学特征。本综述中关于此次疫情爆发的所有发现和陈述均基于参考文献中列出的已发表信息。
大多数出版物均使用英文撰写（89.2%）。发表的文章中最大的比例是关于病因的（38.5%），其中大部分（67.7%）是中国学者发表的。最初的研究文章主要集中在病因上，但随着时间的推移，与预防和控制相关的文章数量有所增加。到目前为止，研究表明病毒的起源与武汉的一个海鲜市场有关，但尚未确定具体的动物关联。报告的症状包括发热、咳嗽、乏力、肺炎、头痛、腹泻、咯血和呼吸困难。已经讨论了口罩、手部卫生措施、避免公众接触、病例检测、接触者追踪和隔离等预防措施，以减少传播。到目前为止，尚未证明任何特定的抗病毒治疗有效；因此，感染的人主要依赖对症治疗和支持性护理。
针对 COVID-19 的爆发，研究呈快速增长趋势。在这个早期阶段，发表的研究主要探讨了新型冠状病毒的流行病学、病因、临床表现和诊断以及预防和控制。虽然这些研究对于控制当前的公共卫生紧急情况具有重要意义，但仍需要更多高质量的研究来提供有效的、可靠的方法，以应对这种突发公共卫生事件的短期和长期挑战。
