The World Health Organization has said that the official name for the disease caused by the new coronavirus is Covid-19. The new name is taken from the words “corona”, “virus” and “disease”, with 2019 representing the year that it emerged.
- The new name came after the death toll from the virus passed 1,000. Tens of thousands of people have been infected. The number of deaths has overtaken that of the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003.
- According to the World Health Organisation, ”following WHO best practices for naming of new human infectious diseases, which were developed in consultation and collaboration with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), WHO has named the disease COVID-19, short for “coronavirus disease 2019.”
Bats-the real culprit!
- The WHO said that increasing evidences demonstrate the link between the 2019-nCoV and other similar known coronaviruses (CoV) circulating in bats, and more specifically those of the Rhinolophus bat sub-species. These sub-species are abundant and widely present in Southern China, and across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
- Recent studies indicate that more than 500 CoVs have been identified in bats in China. To be noted that serological studies conducted in rural population living close to bats natural habitat in caves revealed a 2.9% bat-CoV seroprevalence, demonstrating that humans exposure to bat-CoVs might be common.
