Coronaviruses( covid 19 ) are a family of hundreds of viruses that can cause fever, respiratory problems, and sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms too. The 2019 novel coronavirus, which is probably why you’re reading this right now, is one of seven members of this family known to infect humans, and the third in the past three decades to jump from animals to humans. Since emerging in China in December, this new coronavirus has caused a global health emergency, sickening more than 43,000 people worldwide, and so far killing 1,018.

Coronaviruses are divided into four genera: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. These little invaders are zoonotic, meaning they can spread between animals and humans; gamma and delta coronaviruses mostly infect birds, while alpha and beta mostly reside in mammals.

WHO chief Tedros said the virus had been named Covid-19, explaining that it was important to avoid stigma and that other names could be inaccurate.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • WHO chief Tedros said the virus had been named Covid-19 to avoid the stigma
  • The first vaccine [against coronavirus Covid-19] could be ready in 18 months: WHO
  • The WHO asked countries to be “as aggressive as possible” in fighting the newly named Covid-19 coronavirus

“The first vaccine [against coronavirus Covid-19] could be ready in 18 months, so we have to do everything today using available weapons to fight this virus.

Tedros said the virus had been named Covid-19, explaining that it was important to avoid stigma and that other names could be inaccurate.

The World Health Organization asked countries to be “as aggressive as possible” in fighting the newly named Covid-19 coronavirus on Tuesday.

“If the world doesn’t want to wake up and consider the virus as public enemy number one, I don’t think we will learn from our lessons,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“…We are still in containment strategy and should not allow the virus to have a space to have local transmission.”

The coronavirus outbreak in China may be over by April, the country’s senior medical adviser said on Tuesday, but deaths surpassed 1,000 and the WHO warned of a global threat potentially worse than terrorism.

The first cases were identified at the tail end of 2019 in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s Hubei province when hospitals started seeing patients with severe pneumonia. Like the viruses that cause MERS and SARS, the new coronavirus appears to have originated in bats, but it’s not clear how the virus jumped from bats to humans or where the first infections occurred. Often, pathogens journey through an intermediary “animal reservoir”—bats infect the animals, and humans come into contact with some product from that animal. That could be milk or undercooked meat, or even mucus, urine, or faeces. For example, MERS moved to humans through camels, and SARS came through civet cats sold at a live animal market in Guangzhou, China.