The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on 11th  March 2020. The situation is evolving rapidly with global case counts and deaths increasing each day. Clinical trials and investigations to learn more about the virus, its origin, and how it affects humans are ongoing.   

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

A novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was identified in 2019 in Wuhan, China. This is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans.

People may be sick with the virus for 1 to 14 days before developing symptoms. The most common symptoms of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are fever, tiredness, and dry cough. Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing special treatment.

More rarely, the disease can be serious and even fatal. Older people, and people with other medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), may be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill.

 “As the official disease name was established after material creation, any mention of nCoV refers to COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus.”