COVID-19: a novel zoonotic disease caused by a coronavirus from China: what we know and what we don’t
John S Mackenzie A and David W Smith B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Faculty of Health Sciences
Curtin University
Bentley, WA, Australia
Honorary Professor
School of Chemistry and
Molecular Biosciences
University of Queensland
St Lucia, Qld, Australia
Email: J.Mackenzie@curtin.edu.au
B School of Medicine
Faculty of Health and
Medical Sciences
University of Western Australia
Crawley, WA, Australia
Microbiology Australia 41(1) 45-50 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA20013
Published: 17 March 2020
Journal Compilation © Australian Society for Microbiology 2020 Open Access CC BY-NC-ND
Abstract
At the end of December, 2019, a new disease of unknown aetiology appeared in Wuhan, China. It was quickly identified as a novel betacoronavirus, and related to SARS-CoV and a number of other bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses. The virus rapidly spread to all provinces in China, as well as a number of countries overseas, and was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the Director-General of the World Health Organization on 30 January 2020. This paper describes the evolution of the outbreak, and the known properties of the novel virus, SARS-CoV-2 and the clinical disease it causes, COVID-19, and comments on some of the important gaps in our knowledge of the virus and the disease it causes. The virus is the third zoonotic coronavirus, after SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, but appears to be the only one with pandemic potential.
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