Open AccessCHALLENGING COVID-19
Author(s) -
Nagaraj Rao
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
indian drugs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 0019-462X
DOI - 10.53879/id.57.02.p0005
Subject(s) - covid-19 , transmission (telecommunications) , context (archaeology) , virology , coronavirus , middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus , middle east respiratory syndrome , coronavirus infections , biology , respiratory tract infections , cats , common cold , betacoronavirus , medicine , immunology , outbreak , respiratory system , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology , disease , anatomy , paleontology , electrical engineering , engineering
Dear Reader, Coronaviruses are a large family of zoonotic viruses, that is, the virus is transmitted from animals to humans. Although several common human coronaviruses are known, and usually lead upon infection to mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, some coronaviruses cause epidemics. Severe Acute Respratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV) erupted in February 2003 following transmission from civet cats to humans. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) surfaced in April 2012 following transmission from dromedary camels to humans. However, both these epidemics pale into insignificance in the context of the havoc currently being caused by an hitherto unknown coronavirus, now named as COVID-19 and which is first assumed to have started mid-December 2019 in Wuhan, China. It is strongly suspected that COVID-19 was transmitted from bats to humans.