In order to provide our readers with timely access to new content, papers accepted by the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene are posted online ahead of print publication. Papers that have been accepted for publication are peer-reviewed and copy edited but do not incorporate all corrections or constitute the final versions that will appear in the Journal. Final, corrected papers will be published online concurrent with the release of the print issue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 00(0), 2020, pp. 1–3 doi:10.4269/ajtmh.20-0281 Copyright © 2020 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Perspective Piece All together to Fight Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Sara Momtazmanesh, 1,2 Hans D. Ochs, 2,3,4 Lucina Q. Uddin, 2,5 Matjaz Perc, 2,6,7 John M. Routes, 2,8 Duarte Nuno Vieira, 2,9,10 Waleed Al-Herz, 2,11 Safa Baris, 2,12 Carolina Prando, 2,13,14 Laszlo Rosivall, 2,15 Amir Hamzah Abdul Latiff, 2,16 Timo Ulrichs, 2,17 Vasili Roudenok, 2,18 Juan Carlos Aldave Becerra, 2,19 Deepak B. Salunke, 2,20 Ekaterini Goudouris, 2,21 Antonio Condino-Neto, 2,22 Anzhela Stashchak, 2,23 Oleksandr Kryvenko, 2,23 Mykola Stashchak, 2,23 Anastasia Bondarenko, 2,24 and Nima Rezaei 1,2 * 1 School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 2 Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), The World; 3 Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; 4 Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington; 5 Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida; 6 Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia; 7 Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan; 8 Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; 9 University of Coimbra, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal; 10 Institute of Legal Medicine and Institute of Bioethics, Coimbra, Portugal; 11 Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait; 12 Division of Pediatric Allergy/Immunology, Marmara University Hospital, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey; 13 Instituto de Pesquisa Pel ´ e Pequeno Pr´ ıncipe, Curitiba, Brazil; 14 Faculdades Pequeno Pr´ ıncipe, Curitiba, Brazil; 15 Institute of Translational Medicine, International Nephrology Research and Training Center, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; 16 Allergy and Immunology Centre, Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 17 Institute for Research in International Assistance, Akkon University for Human Sciences, Berlin, Germany; 18 Belarusian State Medical University, Minsk, Belarus; 19 Hospital Nacional Edgardo Rebagliati Martins, Lima, Peru; 20 Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh, India; 21 Pediatrics Department, Medical School, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 22 Department of Immunology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; 23 Kharkiv National Medical University, Kharkiv, Ukraine; 24 Pediatric Infectious Disease and Pediatric Immunology Department, Shupyk National Medical Academy for Postgraduate Education, Kiev, Ukraine Abstract. Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), named a pandemic by the WHO, is the current global health crisis. National and international collaboration are indispensable for combating COVID-19 and other similar potential outbreaks. International efforts to tackle this complex problem have led to remarkable scientific advances. Yet, as a global society, we can and must take additional measures to fight this pandemic. Undoubtedly, our approach toward COVID-19 was not perfect, and testing has not been deployed fast enough to arrest the epidemic early on. It is critical that we revise our approaches to be more prepared for pandemics as a united body by promoting global cooperation and commitment. In December 2019, novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, China, attracting the notice of regional authorities and rapidly drawing global attention. According to the WHO, in less than 4 months, COVID-19 spread through almost all countries and regions. The COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the world economy, in addition to creating the current global health crisis. 1 In recent decades, we have witnessed several other epi- demic outbreaks, which have highlighted the importance of strengthening our ability to anticipate epidemics and pan- demics in addition to taking appropriate and timely global measures. The most prominent recent outbreaks included severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, H1N1 influenza in 2009, Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012, and Ebola in West Africa in 2014–2016. 2 Every one of these experiences taught us salutary lessons for managing similar situations in the future and reminded us that we remain inadequately pre- pared for a pandemic. 3 One of these invaluable lessons was that international collaboration is an indispensable part of the preparation for such outbreaks. We have made significant progress in establishing global guidelines to prevent epi- demics and pandemics. The establishment of several organi- zations supported by the WHO to coordinate international measures for pandemic threats is an example of these endeavors. 4 The “Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations” and “Re- search Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness” are examples of such organizations that are currently actively looking for potential therapies and vaccines for COVID-19. Our rapidly advancing knowledge of COVID-19, which was gained only through extensive worldwide scientific collabo- ration, is a showcase of the international efforts to tackle this problem. One of the initial effective actions was the rapid sharing of the genomic sequence of COVID-19, which enabled numerous researchers around the world to study this virus simultaneously. 5 In addition, rapid publishing of data relevant to COVID-19 set the stage for researchers to work on this still- evolving challenge worldwide. As of mid-April 2020, nearly 4,000 articles addressing COVID-19 were registered in PubMed, sharing clinical and epidemiological features of the disease, results of in vitro and in vivo investigations aimed at finding effective treatments and vaccines, and other ad- vances. An important factor promoting advances on COVID- 19 was the provision of open access to reports on this topic by many publishers. A remarkable collaborative activity was the launch of the Solidarity trial, which aims to find an effective treatment for COVID-19 and is currently being conducted in at least 10 countries, by the WHO. 6 In addition to scientific accomplishments, national and in- ternational cooperation have helped tremendously in curbing the spread of the virus. On a national level, many countries are educating the public with reliable and accurate data and in- structions, provided by both political and scientific authori- ties. 7 Compliance of citizens with policies such as social distancing, sanitation, and isolation is playing a major role in controlling this pandemic. Understanding the enormous im- pact of these policies and practices on individual and public health is key to maintaining the public’s compliance. On a * Address correspondence to Nima Rezaei, Research Center for Immunodeficiencies, Children’s Medical Center Hospital, Dr. Qarib St., Keshavarz Blvd., Tehran 14194, Iran. E-mail: rezaei_nima@tums. ac.ir 1