A coronavirus such as SARS or MERS is a virus
that often causes symptoms similar to a cold. While some are serious, most are
not. To prevent catching a coronavirus, take precautions such as washing your
hands and staying away from others who are infected.
A coronavirus is
a kind of common virus that causes an infection in your nose,sinuses, or upper throat. Most coronaviruses
are not dangerous.
Some types of
coronavirus are serious, though. Several people have died from Middle East
respiratory syndrome (MERS) in Saudi Arabia and other countries. People also
died from a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003. Both MERS and SARS are
caused by coronaviruses.
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Lung Disease/Respiratory Problems
There is an old proverb that states, "Life is in the breath.
He who half breathes half lives." If you have allergies, asthma, or other
breathing problems, this proverb may sound very familiar. But a greater
understanding of your breathing problems, along with an accurate medical
diagnosis and effective treatment, can help you regain control. It doesn't
matter what type of breathing problem you have. Daily control is vital to
living an active, productive life.
Usually, though, a
coronavirus causes common cold symptoms that you can easily treat
with rest and over-the-counter medication.
What
Is a Coronavirus?
Coronaviruses were first
identified in the 1960s, but we don't know where they come from. They get their
name from their crown-like shape. Sometimes, but not often, a coronavirus can
infect both animals and humans.
Most coronaviruses
spread the same way other cold-causing viruses do, through infected people coughing and sneezing, by touching an
infected person's hands or face, or by touching things such as doorknobs that
infected people have touched.
Almost everyone gets a
coronavirus infection at least once in their life, most likely as a young
child. In the United States, coronaviruses are more common in the fall and
winter, but anyone can come down with a coronavirus infection any time.
Common
Symptoms of Coronavirus
The symptoms of most
coronaviruses are similar to any other upper-respiratory infection, including runny
nose, coughing, sore throat, and sometimes a fever. In most cases, you won't know whether
you have a coronavirus or a different cold-causing virus, such as rhinovirus.
You could get lab tests,
including nose and throat cultures and blood work, to find out whether your cold
was caused by a coronavirus, but there's no reason to. The test results
wouldn't change how you treat your symptoms, which typically go away in a few
days.
But if a coronavirus
infection spreads to the lower respiratory tract (your windpipe and your lungs),
it can cause pneumonia, especially in older people, people
withheart disease, or people with weakened immune
systems.
What
to Do About Coronavirus
There is no vaccine for
coronavirus. To prevent coronavirus infection, do the same things you do to
avoid the common cold:
·
Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water or with an
alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
·
Keep your hands and fingers away from your eyes, nose, and mouth.
·
Avoid close contact with people who are infected.
You treat a coronavirus
infection the same way you treat a cold, too:
·
Get plenty of rest.
·
Drink fluids.
·
Take over-the-counter medicine for sore throat and fever (but
don't give aspirin to children; use ibuprofen or acetaminophen instead).
A humidifier or steamy
shower can also help ease a sore and swollen throat.
Even when coronavirus
causes MERS or SARS in other countries, the kind of coronavirus infection
common in the U.S. isn't a serious threat for an otherwise healthy adult. If
you get sick, treat your symptoms and contact a doctor if they get worse or
don't go away.
Important differences between Middle East respiratory
syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) suggest that MERS
won't prove as dangerous as SARS, researchers report.
MERS emerged last year in Saudi Arabia and nearly all cases
of infection have been reported there, or in people who were infected with the
virus there before traveling to other countries. Between Sept. 1, 2012, and
June 15, 2013, there were 47 confirmed cases (46 adults, one child) of MERS
infections in Saudi Arabia, according to the report published July 25 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
As of July 24, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said there had been 90 MERS cases worldwide.
An analysis of clinical records, laboratory results and
other data revealed that older people, men and patients with chronic health
problems are more likely to succumb to the disease, the investigators said.
Like those infected with SARS, people with MERS have a wide range of symptoms.
Most patients admitted to the hospital had fever (98 percent), chills (87
percent), cough (83 percent), shortness of breath (72 percent) and muscle pain
(32 percent). One-fourth of patients also had gastrointestinal symptoms, such
as vomiting and diarrhea.
Unlike SARS, however, nearly all of the cases of MERS
occurred in people with chronic health conditions, such as diabetes (68
percent), high blood pressure (34 percent), chronic heart disease (28 percent)
and chronic kidney disease (49 percent).
"Despite sharing some clinical similarities with SARS
(e.g., fever, cough and incubation period), there are also some important
differences, such as the rapid progression to respiratory failure, up to five
days earlier than SARS," study leader Ziad Memish, the deputy minister for
public health from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said in a journal news release.
"In contrast to SARS -- which was much more
infectious, especially in health-care settings, and affected the healthier and
the younger age group -- MERS appears to be more deadly, with 60 percent of
patients with co-existing chronic illnesses dying, compared with the 1 percent
to 2 percent toll of SARS," Memish said.
"Although this high mortality rate with MERS is
probably spurious due to the fact that we are only picking up severe cases and
missing a significant number of milder or asymptomatic cases, so far there is
little to indicate that MERS will follow a similar path to SARS," Memish
added.
Study co-author Ali Zumla, from University College London in
the United Kingdom, said that "the recent identification of milder or
asymptomatic cases of MERS in health-care workers, children and family members
of contacts of MERS cases indicates that we are only reporting the tip of the
iceberg of severe cases and there is a spectrum of milder clinical disease
which requires urgent definition."
"Ultimately, the key will be to identify the source of
MERS infection, predisposing factors for susceptibility to infection and the
predictive factors for poor outcome," Zumla said in the news release.
"Meanwhile, infection control measures within hospitals seem to
work."
In an editorial accompanying the report, Christian Drosten,
of the University of Bonn Medical Center in Germany, said there is an urgent
need to develop accurate diagnostic tests to help focus efforts to control MERS
and to minimize the risk of it spreading from infected patients to other
people.
Many people wonder just how scientists know
that the cause of SARS is a virus and, more importantly, this particular virus.
Public health scientists
verified that a common virus -- a coronavirus --
that has become more severe as the likely cause of severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS). Many people wonder just how scientists know that the cause is
a virus and, more importantly, this particular virus.
In 1890, Robert Koch
described the basis rules that scientists use to determine if an infectious
organism causes a specific disease. These four rules are called "Koch's
postulates."
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Important It is possible that the main title of the report
Enterobiasis is not the name you expected. Please check the synonyms listing to
find the alternate name(s) and disorder subdivision(s) covered by this report.
1.
The organism must be found in people with the disease and be
absent in people without the disease.
2.
The organism must be able to be grown from tissues or other
specimens from the affected individual in the laboratory.
3.
The organism must cause the disease when given to an unaffected
healthy person.
4.
The organism must again be grown from this second individual.
In the case of SARS, we
know that the coronavirus had been found and grown from several individuals who
have been sick with the symptoms of SARS -- thus fulfilling the first two of
Koch's postulates. Because it would be unethical to expose people with the
virus, public health scientists use a science called epidemiology to prove that
only people exposed to the virus have gotten the infection. This technique
relies on interviewing and studying groups of people who have gotten ill and
comparing them with people who have not come down with the disease.
Investigators then assume the disease would occur if a person were exposed to
the disease. They then look to see if newly unintentionally exposed people come
down with the disease and that organism is grown from them. This fulfills in
principle Koch's third and fourth rules.
In the case of SARS,
scientists have clearly shown that the virus is associated with people with the
disease and the virus has been isolated from these patients. The
epidemiology also shows that the disease occurs in people who are exposed to
the disease more often than people who have not been clearly exposed to the
disease. Finally, the virus has been grown from the people who were
subsequently exposed. In addition, scientists can use animals to demonstrate
these last two rules by exposing the animal to the coronavirus and see if it
causes a disease like SARS.
Citations
1.
Peiris JSM, et al.
(2003). The severe acute respiratory syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine,
349(25): 2431–2441.
2.
World Health
Organization (2003). Summary of Probable SARSCases With Onset of Illness From 1 November
2002 to 31 July 2003. Available online:
http://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/table2004_04_21/en/.
3.
Loutfy MR, et al.
(2003). Interferon alfacon-1
plus corticosteroids in severe acute respiratory syndrome: A preliminary study.
JAMA, 290(24): 3222–3228.
4.
Hayden FG and Ison MG
(2006). Respiratory viral infections. In DC Dale, DD Federman,
eds., ACP Medicine, section 7, chap. 25. New York: WebMD.
5.
World Health
Organization (2004). WHO guidelines for the global surveillance of severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS). Updated recommendations, October 2004. Available
online:
http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/WHO_CDS_CSR_ARO_2004_1/en/index.html.
6.
Eun-Hyung Lee F,
Treanor JJ (2010). Viral infections. In R Mason et al., eds., Murray and Nadels
Textbook of Respiratory Medicine, 5th ed., vol. 1, pp. 661–698. Philadelphia:
Saunders Elsevier.
Sumber : MD
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