Imtroduction

Over the past two decades, coronavirus (CoVs) have been associated with significant disease outbreaks in East Asia and the Middle East. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory Syndrome (MERS) began to emerge in 2002 and 2012, respectively. Recently, a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), emerged in late 2019, and as it is posed a global health threat, causing an ongoing pandemic in many countries and territories.

The 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as it is now called, is rapidly spreading from its origin in Wuhan City of Hubei Province of China to the rest of the world. Till 05/03/2020 around 96,000 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 3300 deaths have been reported. India has reported 229 cases till date. Fortunately, so far, children have been infrequently affected with no deaths. But the future course of this virus in unknown. This article gives a bird's eye view about this new virus. Since knowledge about this virus is rapidly evolving, readers are argued to update themselves regularly.