According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 7 types of Coronavirus than can infect humans. Common human coronaviruses include 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1. The other human coronaviruses are MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV aka COVID-19.
The common types of human coronavirus commonly infect people around the world, whereas the other 3 types evolved from animals and infected humans. MERS-CoV causes the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and SARS-CoV causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. MERS-CoV was reported to have first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has similar symptoms to those who contract SARS-CoV, but the death rate in MERS-CoV is 34%. SARS-CoV was reported to have first appeared in China in 2002, spread quickly across 29 countries, infected more than 8000 individuals, and killed around 800 individuals.
Like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, COVID-19 is thought to have originated from bats. As stated by Newscientist.com, "...genomic analysis so far suggests that COVID-19 is mutating slowly, reducing the chance of it changing to become more deadly." On March 18th of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that they were conducting trials on certain combinations of drugs and medicines that could potentially be extremely effective against COVID-19. Since then, there have been numerous developments in potential creation of vaccinations and anti-bodies to fight against COVID-19.
Information gathered from https://www.newscientist.com/term/coronavirus/ & https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html
Comments