The emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in December 2019 was followed by its rapid worldwide spread, causing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to become a public health emergency and then be declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020.
A new preprint available on the bioRxiv* preprint server describes the development of a new platform for evaluating the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in placental tissue.
Background
The presence of the virus goes undetected in most cases due to the absence of any symptoms or because the infected individual has very mild symptoms. Some patients develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and organ failure leading to death in about a quarter of cases with critical illness.
