Respiratory and ventilator management of COVID-19

The current pandemic of COVID-19 has infected around 2.5 million people with more than 125,000 deaths across the globe till date, and numbers are still rising. The causative organism is a virus of corona family. The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) named it severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) due to its similarities with the virus was caused SARS outbreak (SARS-CoV). Although most of the patients present with less severe symptoms like rhinitis, cough, fever, and mild flu-like symptoms, it may progress to severe acute respiratory illness, pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) mainly in immunocompromised hosts. Severe infections mainly involve lungs, and compromise its capacity of ventilation. Respiratory and mechanical ventilation is one of the important parts of management.