WHO confirms 2 new coronavirus deaths. What is coronavirus?
The World Health Organization has confirmed two more deaths from coronavirus,… (Health Protection Agency…)
The deadly and mysterious coronavirus that first appeared in Saudi Arabia last year has claimed two more victims, bringing the official death toll to 11.
The World Health Organization said a 73-year-old man from the United Arab Emirates who was taken to Germany for medical treatment died at a Munich hospital Tuesday. The United Nations health authority also announced that a man from Britain who became sick in January has died. That man had traveled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and presumably became infected there.
This new strain of coronavirus has puzzled doctors since September when it was identified as the cause of death for a 60-year-old man in Saudi Arabia in June. The virus aggressively attacks its victim's lower respiratory system, leading to trouble breathing, fever, pneumonia and even death. It is part of a family of viruses that includes the common cold and is a distant cousin of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed almost 800 people during a global outbreak in 2002 and 2003.
So far, 17 cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed by the World Health Organization. Patients with the virus are overcome with severe lower respiratory infections, sometimes leading to multi-organ failure. Though the virus hasn’t sickened many people, the fact that it has killed 65% of its known hosts has scientists and health officials concerned.
Coronaviruses earned their name because of their physical appearance. The virus has a globular center ringed by a spiny halo — or corona — of proteins.
The virus tricks a body’s immune system into turning against it, said Pinghui Feng, a professor of microbiology at USC.
The bug attacks the lower respiratory system and triggers a dangerous immune system reaction known as a cytokine storm. Even after the immune system has cleared the virus, the body continues to attack cells.
The fast-spreading virus — its peak production is 48 hours after infection — and the out-of-control immune response simulataneously attack the cell lining of the lungs, Feng said. The virus also aims for the kidneys, which may shut down.
The virus appears to have originated in bats, a team of European experts wrote in the journal mBio, which is published by the American Society for Microbiology.
“It is currently not clear how the virus is spreading or where it comes from,” said Volker Thiel of Switzerland’s Institute of Immunobiology and a coauthor of that study. “It is related to coronaviruses detected in bats, but still we don’t know how it jumped to humans.”
Another study published in Nature revealed that the receptor that allows the virus to latch onto and infect cells is very similar in humans and several types of animals, including bats. The particular strain isolated from people is genetically very similar to three of the 60 known strains of bat coronaviruses, although it’s possible that bats gave it to another animal, which then gave it to humans.
