Coronavirus-The World Health Organization on Friday (Feb 28) raised its global risk assessment of the new coronavirus to its highest level after the epidemic spread to Sub-Saharan Africa and financial markets slumped.
The virus has thrived around the globe over the past week, developing in every region except Antarctica, stimulating many governments and businesses to undertake to prevent people from traveling or gathering in crowded places.
It has killed quite 2,800 people and infected over 84,000 worldwide – the overwhelming majority in China – since it emerged apparently from an animal market within the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late December.
But it’s its rapid spread to new zones that has authorities concerned – within the past 24 hours; it’s affected nine new countries, from Azerbaijan to Mexico to New Zealand.
We have now enlarged our calculation of the danger of spread and consequently the risk of the crash of COVID-19 to very high at global level,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
“We don’t see the sign so far that the virus is extending freely in communities.
As long as that is the case, we still have an opportunity to containing this virus.”
“The key to containing this virus is to interrupt the chain of transmission,” he said, emphasizing the importance of people taking precautions to prevent contagion.
“Our utmost enemy isn’t the virus itself; it’s fear, rumors and stigma, and our extreme assets are facts, reason, and solidarity,” he said.
Global investors nevertheless ran frightened, with world markets suffering their most miserable week since the 2008 financial crisis.
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The chair of the US Federal Reserve System, Jerome Powell, said the financial institution stood at the ability to intervene if needed, given the “evolving” risks to the world’s largest economy posed by the deadly outbreak.
New drastic measures were put in place: Switzerland canceled all gatherings of quite 1,000 people, and Saudi Arabia banned Gulf citizens from its holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
“This isn’t a time for panic. It’s time to be prepared – fully prepared,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. Global investors nevertheless ran scared, with world markets misery their worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The chair of the US Federal Reserve System, Jerome Powell, said the financial institution stood at the ability to intervene if needed, given the “evolving” risks to the world’s largest economy posed by the deadly outbreak.
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New drastic measures were put in place: Switzerland canceled all gatherings of quite 1,000 people, and Saudi Arabia banned Gulf citizens from its holy cities of Mecca and Medina. “This isn’t a time for panic. It’s time to be prepared – fully prepared,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
We see the number of nations battling containment,” said Michael Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergency program. Conditions had previously been reported in Egypt and Algeria, but not within the sub-Saharan region until Friday when Nigeria reported its first case: an Italian man in densely populated Lagos.
In Iran, unspecified health system sources told the BBC that a minimum of 210 people had died of the coronavirus – far beyond the official toll of 34, but a health ministry spokesman angrily disagreed that figure.
SCHOOL CLOSED, EVENTS CANCELLED
The coronavirus crisis affects everything from global production schools and colleges to sporting events, with FIFA warning on Friday that international football matches might be postponed.
Several companies have said they assume the virus to hit their earnings due to weaker demand.
Oil prices also stumbled again, with Brent oil for April delivery descending as low as US$50.05 a barrel.
Analysts have alerted that China, the world’s second-largest economy, will see a severe cut in growth this quarter because the country remains mostly paralyzed by quarantines and containment measures.
Still, signs in China offered the expectation that the epidemic might be contained.
China reported 44 more deaths on Friday, raising its toll to 2,788, with 327 new cases – rock bottom daily figure for brand spanking new infections in additional than a month.
The virus has typically killed the elderly or people with pre-existing health conditions. South Korea also now has the maximum cases outside China, with quite 2,000 infections and 13 deaths.
In Japan, A British man who was on board a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship isolated near Tokyo had died. Quite 700 others on the ship have confirmed positive.
The governor of Japan’s rural northern island of Hokkaido urged people to remain reception this weekend during a desperate effort to contain the outbreak. In Europe, the most crucial epicenter is Italy, with 650 cases and 17 deaths – mostly in cities within the north.
Wide-ranging schemes to halt the spread of the virus have pretentious tens of millions of people in northern Italy, with schools closed and cultural and sporting events canceled.
BEIJING: China could start clinical trials for a possible vaccine for the novel coronavirus around late April, a politician said on Friday (Feb 21).
More than 2,200 people have died, and quite 75,000 are infected by it in China.
At present, some schemes have entered the stage of animal testing.
Scientists within the US announced Wednesday that they had created the primary 3D atomic-scale map of the part of the novel coronavirus that attaches to and infects human cells, a critical step toward developing vaccines and coverings.
China is presently expending five different methods to progress the vaccine to curb the spread of the virus.
These include using inactivated coronavirus to supply a vaccine, using gene-splicing to mass-produce proteins that would act as antigens for the novel coronavirus or modifying existing vaccines for influenza, Zeng said.
Researchers worldwide are racing to develop potential vaccines and medicines to fight the new coronavirus, called SARS-Cov-2. Now, a gaggle of examiners has found out the molecular structure of a key protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells, potentially opening the door to the event of a vaccine, consistent with new findings.
Though the coronavirus uses many different proteins to replicate and invade cells, the spike protein is the major surface protein that it uses to bind to a receptor — another protein that acts as a doorway into a human cell. After the spike protein binds to the human cell receptor, the viral membrane fuses with the human cell membrane, allowing the genome of the virus to enter human cells and begin infection. So “if you can prevent attachment and fusion, you will prevent entry,” McLellan told Live Science. But to target this protein, you need to know what it looks like.
