Scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health are attempting to find out more about a lethal new coronavirus and determine if it will become a pandemic or stay a limited threat.
Vincent Munster, a representative of the NIH’s Virus Ecology Unit, attended the annual meeting of the Biodefense and Emerging Diseases sector of the American Society of Microbiology on Wednesday. Munster said the new virus is most closely related to coronaviruses carried by bats, but none of the people who got the disease had direct contact with bats, Science News reports.
The virus, which is related to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory disease, sickened 13 people and killed seven of them since last April in England and the Middle East. All but one of the infected were hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Several of the victims experienced kidney failure.
Vincent Munster, a representative of the NIH’s Virus Ecology Unit, attended the annual meeting of the Biodefense and Emerging Diseases sector of the American Society of Microbiology on Wednesday. Munster said the new virus is most closely related to coronaviruses carried by bats, but none of the people who got the disease had direct contact with bats, Science News reports.
The virus, which is related to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory disease, sickened 13 people and killed seven of them since last April in England and the Middle East. All but one of the infected were hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Several of the victims experienced kidney failure.
