The coronavirus causing a deadly outbreak in China has been named COVID-19, the World Health Organization has announced. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the global body, announced the new name at a conference in Geneva this afternoon. It comes almost six weeks after the virus was first identified in the city of Wuhan, China, in late December. Since then it has infected more than 43,000 people and killed 1,018. The virus, which has had various names from simply coronavirus to Wuhan coronavirus, Chinese coronavirus or even snake flu, needs its own moniker because it is just one type of coronavirus. The word refers to a group of viruses which contains those that cause SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome). Coronaviruses are so named because their structure has jagged edges which look like a royal crown – corona is crown in Latin (Pictured, an illustration of the COVID-19 virus released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, announced the name of the virus at a conference in Geneva today Dr Ghebreyesus told the conference in Geneva: ‘C-o stands for corona, v-i… Read full this story
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