Friday 17 April 2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

A lot can be confusing during a pandemic, including the virus names and the language we use to talk it with many media reports using 'Coronavirus', 'COVID-19' and 'SARS-CoV-2' interchangeably but one is the family of Virus's, one is this particular Virus and one is the disease caused.
A Coronavirus refers to a group of viruses that are known to cause respiratory issues and make the jump from animals to humans (Zoonotic) with this one suspected to have come from bats and before it was named it was referred to as a 'Novel Coronavirus' which just means it is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.
The Virus was named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) as
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome COronaVirus 2 or (SARS-CoV-2).
The disease named by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is COronaVIrus Disease (or COVID for short) and it was discovered in 2019 so it became COVID-19.

So just as Human Immunodeficiency Viruses (HIV) is the virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS, a Coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 infects the human with  a disease called COVID-19.

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