What is coronavirus?
In response to the WHO, coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause sicknesses ranging from the frequent cold to more severe diseases resembling severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
These viruses had been originally transmitted between animals and people. SARS, as an example, was transmitted from civet cats to people while MERS moved to humans from a type of camel.
A number of known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that haven’t but infected humans.
The name coronavirus comes from the Latin word corona, that means crown or halo. Under an electron microscope, the image of the virus appears like a solar corona.
The novel coronavirus, identified by Chinese authorities on January 7 and since named COVID-19, is a new strain that had not been beforehand recognized in humans. Little is known about it, though human-to-human transmission has been confirmed.
What are the symptoms?
According to the WHO, signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties.
In more severe cases, it can lead to pneumonia, a number of organ failure and even death.
Current estimates of the incubation interval – the amount of time between infection and the onset of signs – range from one to 14 days. Most contaminated individuals show symptoms within 5 to 6 days.
However, infected patients will also be asymptomatic, which means they do not display any signs despite having the virus of their systems.
Read more on what the coronavirus does to your body in case you catch it here.
How deadly is it?
With more than 2,004 recorded deaths, the number of fatalities from this new coronavirus has surpassed the toll of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which additionally originated in China.
SARS killed about 9 percent of these it contaminated – nearly 800 individuals worldwide and more than 300 in China alone. MERS, which didn’t spread as widely, was more deadly, killing one-third of those it infected.
While the new coronavirus is more widespread in China than SARS in terms of case numbers, the mortality rate stays considerably lower at approximately 2 %, according to WHO.
What is being achieved to stop it from spreading?
Scientists around the globe are racing to develop a vaccine but have warned that one is unlikely to be available for mass distribution before 2021.
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have successfully sealed off Wuhan and placed restrictions on journey to and from several different cities, affecting some 60 million people.
Many worldwide airlines have cancelled flights to China. Some international locations have banned Chinese nationals from getting into their territories and several other more have evacuated their citizens from Wuhan.
Where did the virus originate?
Chinese health authorities are nonetheless attempting to find out the origin of the virus, which they say possible got here from a seafood market in Wuhan the place wildlife was also traded illegally.
On February 7, Chinese researchers said the virus could have spread from an contaminated animal species to humans through illegally-trafficked pangolins, which are prized in Asia for food and medicine.
Is this a global emergency?
The outbreak now constitutes a world health emergency, the WHO said on January 30.
The decision to sound the top-level alarm was made after the first cases of human-to-human transmission outside China have been confirmed.
The worldwide health alert is a call to nations world wide to coordinate their response under the steerage of the United Nations health agency.
There have been five international health emergencies since 2005 when the declaration was formalised: swine flu in 2009, polio in 2014, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016 and Ebola again in 2019.
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