As of 2 March, 66 countries have reported cases of novel coronavirus disease 2019. The risk associated with COVID-19 infection for people in the EU/EEA and UK is currently considered to be moderate to high, based on the probability of transmission and the impact of the disease.
On 31 December 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown aetiology was reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. On 9 January 2020, China CDC reported a novel coronavirus as the causative agent of this outbreak, which is phylogenetically in the SARS-CoV clade. The novel coronavirus has thus been named ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2’ (SARS-CoV-2), while coronavirus disease associated with it is now referred to as COVID-19.
On 31 December 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown aetiology was reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. On 9 January 2020, China CDC reported a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as the causative agent of this outbreak, which is phylogenetically in the SARS-CoV clade.
As of 26 January 2020, a total of 2 026 laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV cases have been reported, 1 988 in China and 38 imported cases from other countries around the world. Fifty six deaths have been reported among the cases. Chinese health authorities have confirmed human-to-human transmission outside Hubei province and 16 healthcare workers are reported to have been infected.
A novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has been isolated and considered the causative agent of the cluster of 448 pneumonia cases in the area of Wuhan, Hubei province in China, as well as of the four travel-associated cases in Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
A novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has been isolated and considered the causative agent of the cluster of 41 pneumonia cases in the area of Wuhan, Hubei province in China, as well as of the three travel-related cases in Thailand and Japan, arriving from Wuhan.
Between 31 December and 5 January, 59 pneumonia cases possibly associated with a novel coronavirus have been reported in Wuhan, China with a common exposure link to Wuhan’s South China Seafood City market.