Coronavirus: All You Need To Know About Symptoms, Prevention And Cure

The novel Coronavirus outbreak, with the potential to become pandemic, has claimed more than 3,000 lives worldwide. China, where the disease originated from, has reported more than 2,900 deaths so far while the toll has surged in Italy, Iran and the US. India on Monday also reported three cases of Coronavirus.

The outbreak has led to a scare with governments grappling to find a cure to the disease. While the US has said that drugs to treat the coronavirus could be available by this summer or fall, the preventive measures available as of now have not proved much help to mitigate the outbreak.

Coronavirus And Symptoms?

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses transmitted from animals to humans and cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV), according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The recent one, known as 2019-novel coronavirus (nCoV), is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.

However, these symptoms may not necessarily mean that a person has an illness. If the coronavirus is severe, then a person may suffer from pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, multiple organ failure and even death.

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As of now, no drugs are available to treat the disease, but there are precautions one might take to prevent it.

The doctors suggest that one must avoid touching face, mouth, nose and eyes as this is a possible route of the virus to enter and cause the infection. In case a person shows the symptoms of the disease, it is necessary he or she washes the hands effectively to prevent the transmission of the virus from person to person.

How To Prevent The Disease?

In case you develop symptoms of the coronavirus or if you have recently travelled from areas affected by Coronavirus, it is advised to quarantine yourself as you would with the flu.

To prevent the disease, it's important to keep the hands clean and free from any virus. Here is a guide on how to wash hands:

Pour water on your hands, apply soap and create a lather, clean back of your hand, in between your fingers, the fingertips and thumb. Then again clean your palms. Wash and apply the soap on your wrists and top of your hands again. Rinse the soap off with the water. But make sure you don't turn off the tap with bare hands. Use a tissue to turn it off to avoid cross-contamination. And throw the tissue into a bin.

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Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. If you have a fever or cold, seek early medical help. Cover your face with a mask as they offer some protection.

Vaccine For Coronavirus?

As of now, there is no vaccine available to cure the disease. Even though scientists have developed some vaccines, they are being tested on animals. 

The US Vice President Mike Pence has said that drugs to treat the coronavirus could be available by this summer or fall. 

"The vaccine may not be available until late this year or early next, but the therapeutics to give relief to the people who contract the coronavirus could be available by summer or early fall," he told a news conference.

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The Gilead drug remdesivir has already been used to treat one infected patient in the US as part of a trial, and the intravenous antiviral is also being deployed in trials in Asia.

Other notable potential treatments include one being developed by Regeneron that uses monoclonal antibodies to fight the infection. The same strategy has been shown to be effective against Ebola.

But by the time vaccines are developed and made available to cure the disease, the best way of preventing the illness is good hygiene.