Abstract
Abstract: Corona virus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by newly discovered corona virus. Corona viruses belong to the genus corona virus in the corona viridae. All COVs are pleomorphic RNA viruses characteristically containing crown-shape peplomers with 80-160 nano meters in size and 27-32 kb positive polarity. Recombination rates of COVs are very high because of constantly developing transcription errors and RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp} jumps. With its high mutation rate, corona viruses are zoonotic pathogens that are present in humans and various animals with a wide range of clinical features from asymptometic course to requirement of hospitalization in the intensive care unit, causing infections in respiratory, gastro-intestional, hepatic and neurologic systems. They were not considered as highly pathogenic for humans until they have been seen with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in the Guangdong state of China for the first time in 2002 and 2003. Approximately ten years after SARS, another highly pathogenic COV, middle East Respiratory syndrome corona virus (MERS-COV) has emerged in the middle East countries. In December 2019, 2019 novel Corona virus (nCOV), which is another public health problem, has emerged in the Huanan seafood market, where livestock animals are also traded, in Wuhan state of Hubei province in China and has been the focus of global attention due to a pneumonia epidemic of unknown cause. At first, an unknown pneumonia case was detected on December 12, 2019. Since then it has been spreading throughout the world registering about 33,844,926 ( as on 30th sept, 2020) in 213 countries with 1,012,677 deaths and 21,149,241 recovered cases. Maximum number of cases is being registered in USA (7,406,729), India (6,225,763), Brazil (4,780,317), Russia (1,167,805) and so on. The first case in India has been registered on 30th January, 2020 in Thrissur of Kerala. And now (as on 30th sept, 2020) there are about 6,225,763 total cases with 97,529 total deaths in a span of 9 months. About 5,187,825 cases have been recovered so far and there are 940,409 active cases at present in the country. Among these, serious and critical cases have been identified as 8944. Total corona cases per 1 million population is reported as 4501 and deaths at 71 per 1 million population. So for 74,196,729 total tests have been completed of the total population of 1,383,345,173 in the country. On an average 53636 tests per 1 million population have been carried out. In this context, an attempt is made here to study the spread of COVID-19 in Andhra Pradesh state during lock-down phase-1.