On December 31, 2019, China informed the World Health Organization (WHO) of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. A few patients in Wuhan had been suffering from respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia since December 8, 2019.
The Chinese public health officials began carrying out environmental assessments at the wholesale market, trying to identify the microbe causing the outbreak.
In China, people are fighting a virus outbreak by watching disaster movie ‘The Flu’
The virus belongs in the same family of coronaviruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China.
Its symptoms include fever and fatigue, accompanied by dry cough and difficulty in breathing, which are similar to many other respiratory diseases and pose complications for screening efforts.
As of January 22, 2020 nine people have died and the number of people infected has risen to 440.
Besides China, cases have been confirmed in South Korea, Thailand, Japan and U.S.
