Corona Virus Vaccine: UK starts testing on Mice; WHO says vaccine to be ready in 18 months

The scientists in UK have tested a new Corona Virus vaccine. The Shanghai University of China has also extracted a vaccine to treat the virus and has injected in to a mice recently.

The World Health Organization has also announced that the vaccine will be ready in 18 months. WHO recently named the virus as COVID-19.

Highlights

On February 10, 2020, WHO announced that the death toll of the corona virus has reached 1,000 and 99% of the deaths were from China. There are more than 43,000 cases in China currently.

About Corona Virus

The Corona Viruses are divided into 4 genera namely alpha, beta, gamma and delta. They are zoonotic. This means they can spread between animals and humans. Out of these, gamma and delta corona viruses generally infect birds. Alpha and Beta viruses reside in mammals.

Viruses are capable of infecting all forms of life. It includes plants, other micro organisms including bacteria, single celled organisms called archaea. The first virus was identified by Dmitri Ivanovsky in 1892. He described it as a non-bacterial pathogen.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2020