The world is on the threshold of a new virus threat – the Coronavirus that has brought life to a standstill in some 15 cities across China. Millions of people in various cities there have been quarantined, flights cancelled and movement of people from one city to another curtailed across the red nation in recent days as the death toll climbed up slowly, but steadily.
The outbreak of the new epidemic occurred at a time when China was all set to celebrate its annual Lunar Year, and mass migrations for participation in the festival is a norm year after year. Also of concern to nations in the region as a whole is that the epi-centre of the virus outbreak is Wuhan, a city where medical and other students from several Asian nations including India are currently undergoing courses. Many of them have left the city for their homes during the festival vacation time, and this adds to the concern of Asia and beyond. It is likely some of them carried the virus that surfaces with symptoms identical to those of flu.
The SARS virus outbreak in China in 2003 had left hundreds dead and thousands affected in serious ways. It was contained, but only after it spread terror for several months across the Asian region. The Chinese as a community are widely spread, beyond Asia to Europe, the Middle East, Far East, Europe and the US. Saudi Arabia has reported infections in a few people, obviously intakes from the Chinese population there. India as also several other nations are on alert though WHO has said there was no reason to declare a global health emergency – something that China did within its landmass already.
Millions had been killed in pestilences in China as also the rest of the world in the past. With advances in the field of medicine, such horrors are old stories. The AIDS virus that came in during the 1980s spread a big scare across the world for several years. There were fears that the extinction of mankind was close at hand. The medical field concentrated its attention on finding remedies, and succeeded too. Its intensity as also the scare has come down – after a long stretch of time, of course. In the present case, China did not act fast when the initial reports about the virus outbreak came in December. It is doing its best now to check the spread of the disease. That in itself is reassuring.