Is coronavirus the 'Disease X' WHO warned about?

Covid-19's ability to quickly morph from mild to deadly, is emerging as a contender

Published: February 22, 2020 12:54 Compiled by Jay Hilotin, Senior Web Editor and Bloomberg

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By the numbers Coronavirus — DISEASE X?: The World Health Organization cautioned years ago that a mysterious "Disease X" could spark an international contagion. The new coronavirus, with its ability to quickly morph from mild to deadly, is emerging as a contender. Image Credit: Gulf News / Agencies

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recovery rate Corona — SAME AS SPANISH FLU PANDEMIC? A similar pattern of inflammation noted among Covid-19 patients was observed in those who succumbed to the 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic, said Gregory A. Poland, the Mary Lowell Leary emeritus professor of medicine, infectious diseases, and molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Image Credit: Gulf News / WHO

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coronavirus covid-19 images — STEALTHY VIRUS: From recent reports about the stealthy ways the so-called Covid-19 virus spreads and maims, a picture is emerging of an enigmatic pathogen whose effects are mainly mild, but which occasionally — and unpredictably — turns deadly in the second week. In less than three months, it's infected about 77,000 people, mostly in China, and killed more than 2,200. Image Credit: US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

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492559-01-08-(Read-Only) — SYMPTOMS: This photo taken on February 17, 2020 shows a man (L) who has displayed mild symptoms of the COVID-19 coronavirus using a laptop at an exhibition centre converted into a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Image Credit: AFP

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Coronavirus covid-19 abncs — PANDEMIC CHALLENGE: "Whether it will be contained or not, this outbreak is rapidly becoming the first true pandemic challenge that fits the disease X category," Marion Koopmans, head of viroscience at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, and a member of the WHO's emergency committee, wrote Wednesday in the journal Cell. Image Credit: U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

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Copy of 521892-01-08-1582359235237 — BROADER SPECTRUM OF SEVERITY: "Unlike SARS, Covid-19 infection has a broader spectrum of severity ranging from asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic to severe illness that requires mechanical ventilation," doctors in Singapore said in a paper in the same medical journal Thursday. "Clinical progression of the illness appears similar to SARS: patients developed pneumonia around the end of the first week to the beginning of the second week of illness." Image Credit: AFP

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