A new virus emerges in China
The Hindu, R. Prasad, January 14, 2020 A novel coronavirus has been identified in 41 people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China On December 31, 2019, China informed the World Health Organization (WHO) of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. A few patients in Wuhan had been suffering from respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia since December 8, 2019. Besides providing care, Chinese public health officials began carrying out environmental assessments at the wholesale market and trying to identify the microbe causing the outbreak. How was the virus identified as coronavirus? On January 9, 2020, the WHO issued a statement saying Chinese researchers have made “preliminary determination” of the virus as a novel coronavirus in a person with pneumonia. The researchers were able to determine the virus by sequencing the genome of the novel virus using an isolate taken from an infected patient. “Preliminary identification of a ...