Abstract
Objective: To describe the origin, transmission, morphological and genetic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and its pathogenicity mechanisms. Bibliographic review: At the end of December 2019, health centers in Wuhan, Hubei-China province, observed several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin, associated with a new etiologic agent, a virus, with a similar, but distinct, genomic sequence of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The most common symptoms at the beginning of the infection are fever, cough, fatigue, olfactory and taste disorders; on the other hand, severe cases include pulmonary impairment and hypoxia. Currently, there are no antiviral agents with proven clinical efficacy and vaccination occurs in slow steps in most countries, with symptomatic treatment and life support still being the main therapeutic interventions available. Final considerations: SARS-CoV-2 presents itself as one of the biggest public health problems in the world nowadays. The search for new drugs to treat COVID-19 is constant, however, so far no new drug is available for use with 100% proven clinical efficacy.