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p100, Get travel insurance Finally, consider travel insurance when booking your trip. Though most travel insurances only cover outbreaks in specific instances, having insurance coverage with a “Cancel for Any Reason” policy can help save you some money if you need to cancel your itinerary due to medical reasons or another emergency. How does coronavirus compare to SARS and MERS outbreaks? The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those viruses that can cause the common cold, as well as more serious illnesses such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
p100 - Here is how the dangerous new virus compares with other deadly global epidemics. The new virus comes from a large family of coronaviruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold. But in late 2002, a coronavirus named SARS erupted in southern China, causing severe pneumonia that rapidly spread to other countries. It infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 -- and then it disappeared, thanks to public health measures. In 2012, another coronavirus dubbed MERS began sickening people in Saudi Arabia. It’s still hanging around, causing small numbers of infections each year. The World Health Organization has counted nearly 2,500 cases of MERS in the Middle East and beyond, and more than 850 deaths.
p100, SARS and MERS came from animals, and this newest virus almost certainly did, too. The first people infected with the coronavirus visited or worked at a seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. SARS was initially traced to civet cats sold in a live animal market, but scientists later decided it probably originated in bats that infected the cats. People can catch MERS from infected camels, although again, bats likely first spread that coronavirus to camels, too. The animal-to-human jump is a huge concern for all kinds of viruses. Every so often, new strains of bird flu make the jump from Asian live poultry markets to people, for example.
p100 - The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak. The SARS virus killed about 10 percent of people who caught it. Coronavirus fits criteria for 'Disease X,' WHO expert says The novel coronavirus has led one expert to say that it fits the criteria for “Disease X,” a designated placeholder on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of illnesses that have potential to reach international epidemic levels.
p100 - “Disease X is a term that was coined by WHO,” Marion Koopmans, a member of WHO’s emergency committee, and head of viroscience at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, told Fox News. “After the Ebola crisis in West Africa, they did an in-depth evaluation on what went wrong, and the so-called R&D blueprint for emerging disease was developed.” “Disease X” was added to WHO’s “Prioritizing diseases for research and development in emergency contexts” list of illnesses that includes Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), Ebola and Marburg virus disease, Lassa Fever, MERS, SARS, Nipah and henipaviral diseases, Rift Valley fever and Zika.