The death toll for the new outbreak of the coronavirus has now reached 56, with almost 2,000 people infected across the planet. Medical authorities are still puzzled by the mysterious outbreak, dubbed 2019-nCoV or simply novel coronavirus, meaning it is a new strain which has yet to be identified and have been unable to identify a source.
However, the virus is not nearly as deadly as the common flu, which experts have warned should still take priority in the medical battle.
Influenza can lead to thousands of deaths a year, with the University of Oxford stating that in 2008-2009, there were 13,000 deaths in the UK alone related to the flu.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that an average of up to 500,000 people die annually across the globe due to the flu.
Since October alone, 20,000 people died from flu complications in the US, which has led to one expert describing the coronavirus as a “blip”.
William Schaffner, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, told Kaiser Health News (KHN): “When we think about the relative danger of this new coronavirus and influenza, there’s just no comparison.
“Coronavirus will be a blip on the horizon in comparison. The risk is trivial.”
Peter Hotez, a virologist at Baylor College of Medicine, told KHN: “Influenza rarely gets this sort of attention, even though it kills more Americans each year than any other virus.”
Dr Schaffner added that the reason influenza is so easily overlooked is that we have known about it for thousands of years, and people have become complacent as a result.
He said: “Familiarity breeds indifference. Because it’s new, it’s mysterious, and comes from an exotic place, the coronavirus creates anxiety.”
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses which included the likes of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
When the virus was first contracted by humans from a seafood market in Wuhan, experts believed it could not be easily spread from human to human.
However, a sharp rise in the disease since its initial discovery in December has proved the doctors wrong.
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Zhong Nanshan, a top Chinese expert investigating the virus, told state media it is certainly a “human-to-human transmission phenomenon”.
Symptoms of the disease are generally flu-like, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listing the following symptoms:
Runny nose
Headache
Cough
Sore throat
Fever
A general feeling of being unwell
The CDC added: “Human coronaviruses can sometimes cause lower-respiratory tract illnesses, such as pneumonia or bronchitis.
“This is more common in people with cardiopulmonary disease, people with weakened immune systems, infants, and older adults.”
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