Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in people and different species of animals, including bats, camels, cats, cattle and pangolins.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States says that rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread among other people. Such was the case with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which first was identified in China in 2003, also is a coronavirus, as is COVID-19, which first was identified in China in late 2019.
COVID-19, like SARS and MERS, is thought to have originated in bats. Scientists believe that the bats may have passed the virus to pangolins, which in turn passed it to humans. There still is some debate as to the role of pangolins in spreading the disease.
The virus first was detected in Wuhan, Hubei province, in China. It is linked to a large seafood, meat and live-animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread. Later, a growing number of people who had not been exposed to any animal markets began showing signs of the virus, indicating person-to-person spread.
Person-to-person spread was later reported outside Hubei and in countries outside China, including in the United States. Many international destinations are now reporting “community spread,” which means people there have become infected with the virus, and it is not known how they got it or where they were exposed.
Comments are closed.