Efforts are being made by China to tackle a new type of virus – Coronavirus that got originated from a seafood market-based in Wuhan. This new virus has resulted in deaths of 132 people and a government lockdown was forced in almost twenty cities. Around fifty-six million people got quarantined by it. Most of the cases have been reported from nearby cities located in Hubei province, particularly in Wuhan. It has been reported by WHO – World Health Organization that the name coronavirus has originated from ‘corona’, which is a Latin word and refers to halo or crown. The picture of the virus is indicative of a solar corona if tried to be seen from an electron microscope.
This virus is completely new in humans with a confirmation of possibility of being transferred from one human to another. Most of the types of coronaviruses are found in animals. Amongst them one is MERS that is transferred to humans from different types of camels. Another is SARS that is transferred to humans from civet cats. Moreover, the signs of infection resulted from this coronavirus, involve difficulties in breathing, cough, fever, and shortness of breath. It can also result into failure of kidneys, severe acute respiratory syndrome, death, and pneumonia.
The incubation period of the coronavirus remains unknown. However, it has been confirmed from various resources that the infection of the virus can last amongst ten and fourteen days. Moreover, till now it cannot be regarded as deadly as other kinds of coronavirus like SARS due to which 800 individuals got killed globally. In China, around 300 deaths were reported due to the outbreak that happened in 2002-2003. In contrast to SARS, MERS appeared to be not that much deadly and did not widely spread. However, it did killed 1/3rd people who got infected by it.
