THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW WITH A FOCUS ON ANIMAL TRANSMISSION

The novel Coronavirus is currently the center of medical and media concerns worldwide, with crucial effects not only on the human health, but also on the global economy. Although a wide range of information is available in regards to other SARS strains and especially in humans, very few reports have been published in connection to animals. The present paper attempts to summarize the latest studies on SARV CoV-2 in an effort to capture not only the broad state of knowledge in the field, but, most importantly, what information is available about the virus transmission via animal sources. The current undertaking begins with a discussion on the specificity of SARS CoV-2 and continues with a content analysis of research articles published on this issue during January-April 2020 in the Scopus and Springer databases. The findings indicate that animal-to-human transmission remains poorly documented, although it represents the source of this pandemics.