{"id":14476,"date":"2020-02-16T03:31:41","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T18:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/feb\/15\/coronavirus-the-huge-unknows-by-robin-mckie"},"modified":"2020-02-16T16:22:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T07:22:00","slug":"coronavirus-the-huge-unknowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=14476","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: the huge unknowns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With no vaccines or treatments and limited diagnostic tools, we face a tough challenge in the fight against Covid-19<\/p>\n<p>Afew years ago, the World Health Organisation published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news-room\/detail\/27-02-2017-who-publishes-list-of-bacteria-for-which-new-antibiotics-are-urgently-needed\" title=\"\">a list of pathogens<\/a> which it said needed urgent scientific attention. All were viruses, none had known treatments or vaccines, and all had the potential to trigger pandemics that could kill thousands \u2013 just as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2014\/jun\/10\/diseases-epidemic-research-outbreaks-ebola\" title=\"\">Ebola<\/a> and swine flu did earlier this century.<\/p>\n<p>The viral dangers outlined in WHO\u2019s list included <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/jan\/18\/nipah-fearsome-virus-that-caught-the-medical-and-scientific-world-off-guard\" title=\"\">Nipah disease<\/a>, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/feb\/06\/lassa-fever-has-killed-more-than-100-in-nigeria-latest-figures-show\" title=\"\">Lassa<\/a> and Rift Valley fevers. Crucially, after much discussion, WHO experts later decided to add a new condition to this menu of maladies: Disease X.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/feb\/15\/coronavirus-the-huge-unknows-by-robin-mckie\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With no vaccines or treatments and limited diagnostic tools, we face a tough challenge in the fight against Covid-19Afew years ago, the World Health Organisation published a list of pathogens which it said needed urgent scientific attention. All were v&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,1069,346,914,299,1045,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-coronavirus-outbreak","category-health","category-infectious-diseases","category-science","category-world-health-organization","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/990"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14497,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14476\/revisions\/14497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}