2019 Coronavirus outbreak
China sees another outbreak caused by Coronavirus, now known as Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV), that has gripped the world. China's handling of the situation has been lauded. The effort of the scientific community in understanding the disease is also unprecedented. Scientists in China and Australia reported the viral sequence within 10 days of the first report of the outbreak. With the new age of social media, the scientific community is also able to share the data almost in real-time. As of now, the number of people who have been infected by the virus is 3000, with nearly 100 confirmed deaths.
The virus has nearly 80% similarity with the SARS virus and uses angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 as its receptor to enter intrapulmonary epithelial cells, and so the transmission of the virus is possible only after the lower respiratory tract is infected. However, there are many uncertainties about the virus. How many strains are there, what is the mutation rate of the virus, at what rate the virus is transmitting from human to human, and so on.
Zhu et al., have reported the genome of the coronavirus that will at least help now in rapid diagnosis as well as help develop an antiviral strategy.
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