Clinical features of COVID-19 and SARS epidemics. A literature review

SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the current pandemic, is a novel strain of the Coronaviridae family, which has infected humans as a result of the leap to a new species. It causes an atypical pneumonia similar to that caused by SARS-CoV in 2003. SARS-CoV-2 has currently infected more than 9,200,000 people and caused almost 480,000 deaths worldwide. Although SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV have similar phylogenetic and pathoge-netic characteristics, they show important differences in clinical manifestations.We have reviewed the recent literature comparing the character-istics of the two epidemics and highlight their peculiar aspects. An analysis of all signs and symptoms of 3,365 SARS patients and 23,280 COVID-19 patients as well as of the comorbidities has been carried out. A total of 17 and 75 studies regarding patients with SARS and COVID-19, respectively, were included in the analysis. The analysis revealed an overlap of some symp-toms between the two infections. Unlike SARS patients, COVID-19 patients have developed respiratory, neurological and gas-trointestinal symptoms, and, in a limited number of subjects, symptoms involving organs such as skin and subcutaneous tis-sue, kidneys, cardiovascular system, liver and eyes.This analysis was conducted in order to direct towards an early identification of the infection, a suitable diagnostic procedure and the adoption of appropriate containment measure