Volume 33, Nº 3, May and June 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36660/ijcs.20200057
EDITORIAL
COVID-19: A Matter Close to the Heart
Gláucia Maria Moraes de Oliveira
Fausto J. Pinto
Dr. Gláucia Maria Moraes de Oliveira
The world is facing a new challenge, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by a betacoronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), phylogenetically identical to the SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus) and the MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) responsible for innumerable deaths in China in 2003 and in the Middle
East in 2012, respectively.
On March 11, 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak was characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).1 Twenty-three days after that announcement, the cases reported reached 1,056,777 in 182 countries, with 55,781 deaths, most of which
occurring in Italy, Spain, France, China and Iran. So far, Brazil has registered 8,195 cases and 335 deaths, while Portugal, 9,886 cases and 246 deaths, figures that have
increased steeply since the beginning of the pandemic.2
Keywords: Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19); Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome; Dyspnea; Risk Factors; Fever; Mortality; Pandemics; Cardiovascular Diseases/complications.
