The perils of COVID-19 in Nepal: Implications for population health and nutritional status

摘要

COVID-19, an infectious disease from a highly contagious coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), continues to spread rapidly around the globe since its outbreak as an unknown respiratory infections from Wuhan city of China in December 2019 [1]. As of May 31, 2020, globally there were more than 6.1 million cases of COVID-19 confirmed with a death toll surpassing 371 000. In Nepal, over 1400 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed with six deaths reported as of May 31, 2020 [2]. In the absence of an effective antiviral or immunomodulatory treatment for COVID-19, current pandemic control and management rely heavily on public health interventions such as social distancing and locking down the cities to prevent further spread [3].