COVID-19: An Emerging Pandemic
Abstract
Author(s): Samar Hossain
There have been a recent cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China which has now spread globally affecting thousands of people i.e. more than 85,000 cases as per recent records and killing 2924 people all over the world. This pneumonia was identified to be caused by a novel betacoronavirus-the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). So far 60 countries have been affected and there is a Case Fatality Rate of 3.43%. These coronaviruses can cause illness which rangefrom the common cold to severe diseases like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). A recently discovered new strain i.e. “SARS-CoV-2 has not been identified in humans before.[1]
