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Features, Evaluation and Treatment Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Like other CoVs, it is sensitive to ultraviolet rays and heat. Furthermore, these viruses can be effectively inactivated by lipid solvents including ether (75%), ethanol, chlorine-containing disinfectant, peroxyacetic acid and chloroform except for chlorhexidine.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), viral diseases continue to emerge and represent a serious issue to public health. In the last twenty years, several viral epidemics such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2002 to 2003, and H1N1 influenza in 2009, have been recorded. Most recently, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012.

In a timeline that reaches the present day, an epidemic of cases with unexplained low respiratory infections detected in Wuhan, the largest metropolitan area in China’s Hubei province, was first reported to the WHO Country Office in China, on December 31, 2019. Published literature can trace the beginning of symptomatic individuals back to the beginning of December 2019. As they were unable to identify the causative agent, these first cases were classified as “pneumonia of unknown etiology.” The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local CDCs organized an intensive outbreak investigation program. The etiology of this illness is now attributed to a novel virus belonging to the coronavirus (CoV) family.

On February 11, 2020, the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced that the disease caused by this new CoV was a “COVID-19,” which is the acronym of “coronavirus disease 2019”. In the past twenty years, two additional coronavirus epidemics have occurred. SARS-CoV provoked a large-scale epidemic beginning in China and involving two dozen countries with approximately 8000 cases and 800 deaths, and the MERS-CoV that began in Saudi Arabia and has approximately 2,500 cases and 800 deaths and still causes as sporadic cases.

China develops nanomaterial to combat coronavirus: Report

Beijing, March 29 (IANS) A team of Chinese scientists has reportedly developed a novel way to combat the new coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease which has killed over 32,000 people globally.

According to Global Times, the new weapon is not a drug or a compound but some nanomaterial.

“Chinese scientists have developed a new weapon to combat the #coronavirus,” the news portal tweeted on Sunday.

Map shows how eight strains of coronavirus raced around the world

Scientists around the world are tracking at least eight strains of coronavirus around the world, using genetic detective work to show how the virus spreads.

Researchers say the virus appears to mutate very slowly, with only tiny differences between the different strains, and that none of the strains of the virus is more deadly than another.

They also say it does not appear the strains will grow more lethal as they evolve.

In Somalia, coronavirus goes from fairy tale to nightmare

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — At first, the coronavirus was just a fairy tale, a rumor along the dusty lanes of the displaced persons’ camp that Habiba Ali calls home.

It seemed fantastical: an illness sweeping the world far beyond Somalia’s borders, killing thousands of people and sending some of the richest countries into panic.

Then Somalia’s first virus case was announced on March 16, and one of the world’s most fragile nations staggered even more. Nearly three decades of conflict, extremist attacks, drought, disease and a devastating outbreak of locusts have taken a vast toll.

Chuck Norris Warns of Rebellion, Martial Law if America’s COVID Strategy Doesn’t Change

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“And if even the smallest transgression of confinement restrictions ends up being a misdemeanor, how will officials handle tens of millions of them?”

Norris pointed out that if police are expected to enforce the curfews, they too could become stricken with coronavirus.

Newly developed laboratory model helps reveal how HIV infection affects the brain

Though many negative repercussions of human immunodeficiency virus infection can be mitigated with the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART), one area where medical advances haven’t made as much progress is in the reduction of cognitive impacts. Half of HIV patients have HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), which can manifest in a variety of ways, from forgetfulness and confusion to behavior changes and motor deficiencies.

To better understand the mechanisms underlying HAND, researchers from Penn’s School of Dental Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine and from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) brought together their complementary expertise to create a laboratory model system using three of the types of brain cells thought to be involved. Led by doctoral student Sean Ryan, who was co-mentored by Kelly Jordan-Sciutto of Penn Dental Medicine and Stewart Anderson of CHOP and Penn Medicine, the model recapitulates important features of how HIV infection and ART affect the brain.

“Frankly the models we generally use in the HIV field have a lot of weaknesses,” says Jordan-Sciutto, co-corresponding author on the paper, which appears in the journal Stem Cell Reports. “The power of this system is it allows us to look at the interaction between different cell types of human origin in a way that is more relevant to patients than other models.”