A new virus emerged in Wuhan, a city in China known for a bioweapons lab and a “live market” where people buy and eat bars and other wild animals. As it happens, there is a family of viruses, which include the SARS virus, also called Severe acute respiratory syndrome.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick with SARS during the 2003 outbreak. Of these, 774 died. In the United States, only eight people had laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV infection. All of these people had traveled to other parts of the world where SARS was spreading. SARS did not spread more widely in the community in the United States.
This occurred in 2003 and was limited to Asia with a few travelers.
Another similar virus was called MERS virus or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is viral respiratory illness that is new to humans. It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since spread to several other countries, including the United States. Most people infected with MERS-CoV developed severe respiratory illness, including fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Many of them have died.
Both of these viruses had high mortality rates for those affected. SARS had a mortality of 774 of 8,098 people worldwide or 9.6%.
MERS mortality was higher at about 33%. It is limited to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia.
The new virus is related and seems much more infectious, similar to influenza, but has a lower mortality rate
SARS-CoV-2 has close genetic similarity to bat coronaviruses, from which it likely originated.[10][11][12] An intermediate reservoir such as a pangolin is also thought to be involved in its introduction to humans.[13][14] From a taxonomic perspective SARS-CoV-2 is classified as a strain of the species severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV).[1] To avoid confusion with the disease SARS, the WHO sometimes refers to the virus as “the virus responsible for COVID-19” in public health communications.[15]
There is speculation that the disease is caused by a virus that might have escaped from the Wuhan bioweapons lab, either in a bat that was the subject of experiments or via another vector, perhaps an infected employee. Bat viruses have been of great interest because, while they cause disease in humans, they appear not to harm bats.
Bats that are naturally infected or experimentally infected do not demonstrate clinical signs of disease. These observations have allowed researchers to speculate that bats are the likely reservoirs or ancestral hosts for several CoVs. In this review, we follow the CoV outbreaks that are speculated to have originated in bats. We review studies that have allowed researchers to identify unique adaptation in bats that may allow them to harbor CoVs without severe disease. We speculate about future studies that are critical to identify how bats can harbor multiple strains of CoVs and factors that enable these viruses to “jump” from bats to other mammals
Possibly research into this phenomenon led to the outbreak.
The virus is an RNA virus, and is an enveloped, non-segmented positive-sense RNA viruses.
Coronavirus virions are spherical with diameters of approximately 125 nm as depicted in recent studies by cryo-electron tomography and cryo-electron microscopy [2,3]. The most prominent feature of coronaviruses is the club-shape spike projections emanating from the surface of the virion. These spikes are a defining feature of the virion and give them the appearance of a solar corona, prompting the name, coronaviruses. Within the envelope of the virion is the nucleocapsid. Coronaviruses have helically symmetrical nucleocapsids, which is uncommon among positive-sense RNA viruses, but far more common for negative-sense RNA viruses.
The receptor at cell level seems to be the ACE2, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2; mCEACAM, murine carcinoembryonic antigen-related adhesion molecule.
Treatment with Remdesivir, a Nucleotide analog, has been effective in the first case report.
at a period consistent with the development of radiographic pneumonia in this patient, clinicians pursued compassionate use of an investigational antiviral therapy. Treatment with intravenous remdesivir (a novel nucleotide analogue prodrug in development10,11) was initiated on the evening of day 7, and no adverse events were observed in association with the infusion. Vancomycin was discontinued on the evening of day 7, and cefepime was discontinued on the following day, after serial negative procalcitonin levels and negative nasal PCR testing for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
On hospital day 8 (illness day 12), the patient’s clinical condition improved. Supplemental oxygen was discontinued, and his oxygen saturation values improved to 94 to 96% while he was breathing ambient air. The previous bilateral lower-lobe rales were no longer present.
Chloroquine has also been reported to be effective in treated the pneumonia.
Early data from clinical trials being performed in China has revealed that chloroquine phosphate could help treat the new coronavirus disease, Covid-19.
China National Center for Biotechnology Development deputy head Sun Yanrong said that chloroquine, an anti-malarial medication, was selected after several screening rounds of thousands of existing drugs.
Xinhua reported that the drug is undergoing clinical trials in more than ten hospitals in Beijing, Guangdong province, and Hunan province.
Chloroquine data from Covid-19 trials
Data from the drug’s studies showed ‘certain curative effect’ with ‘fairly good efficacy’.
According to Sun, patients treated with chloroquine demonstrated a better drop in fever, improvement of lung CT images, and required a shorter time to recover compared to parallel groups.
The percentage of patients with negative viral nucleic acid tests was also higher with the anti-malarial drug.
Chloroquine has so far showed no obvious serious adverse reactions in the more than 100 participants in the trials.
Thanks Michael for taking the time to write this up. There is so much junk out there on the CorinaVirus.
[…] have previously described the COVID 19 virus, which is also referred to as Wuhan virus, to the annoyance of the China friendly US Media. The consequences for the US economy have been […]