Are Italy and Iran really suffering from COVID-19 epidemic? A controversial study


Al-Najjar H., Al-Rousan N.

European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, vol.24, no.8, pp.4519-4522, 2020 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 24 Issue: 8
  • Publication Date: 2020
  • Doi Number: 10.26355/eurrev_202004_21034
  • Journal Name: European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, EMBASE, MEDLINE
  • Page Numbers: pp.4519-4522
  • Keywords: COVID-19, Cryptococcus, HFMD, HIV, Maximum likelihood tree
  • Istanbul Gelisim University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

© 2020 Verduci Editore s.r.l. All rights reserved.The number of global COVID-19 infected cases is increased rapidly to exceed 370 thousand. COVID-19 is transmitted between humans through direct contact and touching dirty surfaces. This paper aims to find the similarity between DNA sequences of COVID-19 in different countries, and to compare these sequences with three different diseases [HIV, Hand-Foot-Mouth disease (HFMD), and Cryptococcus]. The study used pairwise distance, maximum likelihood tree, and similarity between amino acid to find the results. The results showed that different three main types of viruses namely, COVID-19 are found. The virus in both Italy and Iran is not similar to COVID-19 in China and USA. While, two viruses were spread in Wuhan (before and after December 26, 2019). Besides Cryptococcus and HFMD are found as dominant diseases with Group 1 and Group 3, respectively. Authors claim that the current virus in Italy and Iran that killed thousands of people is not COVID-19 based on the available data.