Abstract
Coronaviruses are the well-known cause of severe respiratory, enteric and systemic infections in a wide range of hosts including man, mammals, fish, and avian. The scientific interest on coronaviruses increased after the emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) outbreaks in 2002-2003 followed by Middle East Respiratory Syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV). This decade’s first CoV, named 2019-nCoV, emerged from Wuhan, China, and declared as ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ on January 30th, 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). As on February 4, 2020, 425 deaths reported in China only and one death outside China (Philippines). In a short span of time, the virus spread has been noted in 24 countries. The zoonotic transmission (animal-to-human) is suspected as the route of disease origin. The genetic analyses predict bats as the most probable source of 2019-nCoV though further investigations needed to confirm the origin of the novel virus. The ongoing nCoV outbreak highlights the hidden wild animal reservoir of the deadly viruses and possible threat of spillover zoonoses as well. The successful virus isolation attempts have made doors open for developing better diagnostics and effective vaccines helping in combating the spread of the virus to newer areas.
Highlights
Coronaviruses (CoVs) are well-known causes of severe infections, respiratory, enteric and systemic, in humans and numerous animal hosts
After the 2003 and 2005 SARS-CoV epidemics, an analogous virus emerged in the Middle East region of the world leading to severe respiratory illness and was named the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV) (Zaki et al 2012)
The nCoV is the most recently emerging virus after the past episodes and panics haunted by Ebola, Zika and Nipah viruses, as well as earlier emergencies posed by Bird flu and Swine flu viruses
Summary
Coronaviruses (CoVs) are well-known causes of severe infections, respiratory, enteric and systemic, in humans and numerous animal hosts. Though human CoVs were identified for the first time in the year 1960 from respiratory infections in adults as well as children, the major scientific interest in CoVs research grew only after the emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV) in the year 2002-2003 (Drosten et al 2003; Ksiazek et al 2003; Peiris et al 2003) In this SARS-CoV epidemic, around 8000 confirmed human cases with 774 deaths (around 9.5% mortality rate) occurred that was a result of its global spread (Kahn and McIntosh 2005). Its origin was traced from bats (Ithete et al 2013) All these highly pathogenic human CoVs, SARS and MERS, show emergence over wider areas of the world posing high risk of human-to-human transmission and fatal consequences thereto (Figure 1).
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