Switzerland has its first coronavirus case. The world’s first case of the Sars-CoV-2 became known in China in the second half of December 2019.
The new Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 first appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. At the end of 2019, four cases were known, on Tuesday there were around 80,000 infected worldwide. This is despite the fact that the number of flights to and from China has been drastically restricted. The first victim in Europe died on February 21 in northern Italy.
Sars-CoV-2 belongs to the same pathogen group as the Sars and Mers virus. The new virus is significantly more contagious, but the death rate is significantly lower than that of Sars and Mers.
The greatest risk of dying from Covid-19, the lung disease caused by Sars-CoV-2, is for people over 80 years of age. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the mortality rate in this age group is 14.8 percent. Patients with heart disease are particularly at risk, ahead of diabetics and those with respiratory diseases and high blood pressure.
Low mortality rate
Outside the province of Wuhan, only a very small proportion of the population is affected by the disease, according to the WHO. And this very small part has a 2 percent risk of dying from it. The risk of death among those under the age of 39 is 0.2 percent, and the mortality rate increases.
Four out of five patients affected by the disease suffer from a benign form, as a Chinese study on 72,000 people showed. 25,000 of over 79,000 patients have already been cured, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 2663 people died of Covid-19.
China remains the most affected country with almost 77,700 coronavirus patients, ahead of South Korea (833), the passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess (691) off the coast of Japan and Italy (219). Iran has 16 virus victims. So far, seven people have died in Italy.
Flu-like symptoms
According to the WHO, the signs of an infection are flu-like symptoms such as difficulty breathing, breathlessness, fever and cough. In severe cases, the virus can lead to pneumonia, acute breathing difficulties, kidney failure and even death.
For prevention, it is recommended to wash your hands regularly, cover your mouth and nose when you cough and sneeze, or cough and sneeze into the elbow, and eat a balanced diet. Finally, the advice is to stay away from infected people with the symptoms mentioned.
There is still no vaccine against Sars-CoV-2. And that should take a while. A vaccine for the Mers virus, which was discovered on the Arabian Peninsula in 2012 and is also a corona virus, has only been clinically tested since 2018. Biotech is expected to speed up the development of a Sars-CoV-2 vaccine.
(SDA)
– ,
