Indonesia has joined the global efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus, which has claimed more than 170 lives and infected more than 8,000 people.
The Indonesian government has issued a travel warning for citizens planning to go to China’s Hubei province, where the virus first emerged in one of the provincial cities, Wuhan. The aviation authority has also suspended all flights to and from China amid the outbreak. Just last night, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ordered the evacuation of Indonesian citizens still trapped in Hubei.
So far, Indonesia has claimed zero cases despite the fact Chinese tourists are the second largest foreign visitors in Indonesia.
The government has also implemented preventive measures by installing thermal scanners and medical check up posts at 135 points of entries around the country.
Since the first infection confirmed, scientists all around the world have been trying to find vaccines despite debates on the origin of the coronavirus.
Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from University of Pittsburgh, US, Haitao Guo, writes for The Conversation, arguing that the virus may have come from local snakes in China, but other researchers are sceptical.
We may have to wait for further updates from the race between global scientists in finding the cure while hoping that the number of casualties from the pneumonia-like virus will not go any higher.
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Chinese cobra (Naja atra) with hood spread.
Briston/Wikimedia
Haitao Guo, University of Pittsburgh; Guangxiang “George” Luo, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Shou-Jiang Gao, University of Pittsburgh
A new coronavirus related to SARS and MERS has now traveled from China to the United States. A genetic analysis reveals that this deadly pathogen may have originated in snakes.
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Masks are selling out in Singapore amid concerns about the Wuhan virus.
Ng Sor Luan/EPA
Tom Solomon, University of Liverpool
The World Health Organization decided that the coronavirus outbreak in China is not a public health emergency of international concern. At least, not at the moment.
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Health authorities estimate each infectious person could pass the virus onto two others.
Jerome Favre/AAP
C Raina MacIntyre, UNSW
There's no evidence you can spread the Wuhan coronavirus before showing symptoms, but one study suggests it's possible for children and young people to be infectious without ever having symptoms.
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Researchers examine materials collected from a Chinese woman to find the cause of her mysterious pneumonia symptoms, at Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Korea, 09 January 2020.
YONHAP/EPA
Ririn Ramadhany, National Institute of Health Research and Development (NIHRD), Ministry of Health Indonesia
Genetic analysis indicates novel coronavirus from Wuhan has a 89% similarity to the SARS virus, a relative of the SARS bat virus. However this does not mean nCoV comes from bats.
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