With over 3000 deaths and fresher cases being registered every single day, Coronavirus has been coined a pandemic. The World Health Organisation has marked this global health emergency as an "extremely high risk" posing situation. What's scarier is that the infection, which so far was largely restricted to mainland China has now spread over to countries around the globe, including India, where 2 new patients are being attended to.
While this is the first such outbreak of the coronavirus strain, which has infected over 70,000 people so far, some experts are now warning that coronavirus could turn into a seasonal flu-like infection if not taken care of, in time.
Implying that the viruses find a comfortable breeding ground in colder climates, scientists from the United Kingdom are hinting at a possibility that Coronavirus infection might never really "go away" and stay like other harsh seasonal flu-like infections.
Winters are likely the time the viruses find it the easiest to breed and hence, actively attach onto healthy cells. As temperatures begin to rise, the virus becomes less active and lowers the risk of infection, which is currently happening in China, where lesser new cases are being recorded as the season changes.
Speaking about the same, Professor John Oxford, from Queen Mary University in London said:
'If you look at other members of the coronavirus family, that are respiratory viruses and we've known about them for the last 50 years or more, they're seasonal,'
Mentioning further that the virus belongs to the same family of viruses responsible for the spread of other deadly infections like MERSA and SARS, the professor said that coronavirus carries almost an equal infection risk as other related diseases.
Coronavirus outbreak, which originated out of a local poultry market in Wuhan in December 2019 is spreading on to people at an alarming rate, without anyone really being in contact with the original patient. What makes the infection even stranger is that the symptoms of the disease are more or less just as similar to that of a bad bout of the flu. The infection, which has been scientifically named COVID-19 starts off with symptoms like cold, cough, high-grade fever, vomiting, shortness of breath-which are all similar to that of a flu epidemic.
The risk being? If this remains to be the case, much like cold and flu, there won't be much hope for a vaccine or treatment which could guarantee a complete cure or prevention against the disease. Stressing on the need to find a potential cure soon, researchers also say that the virus also has the ability to mutate itself, making it all the more dangerous.
While we report on the spread of coronavirus in India, we also need to emphasise that the need for caution shouldn't lead to an atmosphere filled with anxiety and fear. We stand by #CautionYesPanicNo
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