Cornavirus and its history

  • Coronaviruses are a large family of single-stranded RNA viruses that cause diseases in animals and humans. 
  • These viruses are named so because of spikes found on their surface that give them the appearance of a crown when looked through an electron microscope.

CLASSIFICATION 

  • Broadly, coronaviruses (CoV) are the largest group of viruses that belong to the Nidovirales order, which includes Coronaviridae among three others.
  • Coronavirinae can be further subdivided into alpha, beta, gamma and delta coronaviruses.
  • The Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee for Taxonomy of Viruses is responsible for classifying them and roughly seven years ago they classified them into the aforementioned divisions instead of the serological groups of three.
  • Out of the seven, two are alpha coronaviruses (229E and NL63) and four are beta coronaviruses (OC43, HKU1, MERS and SARS-CoV).

HISTORY OF CORONAVIRUS

  • Till date seven different types of coronaviruses have been identified that infect humans.
  • The first coronavirus was isolated in 1937 and it was the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) that caused respiratory disease in chickens.
  • Human coronaviruses were first characterised in the mid-1960s and they are mostly considered to be responsible for causing upper respiratory tract infections in children. 
  • In 1965, scientists DJ Tyrrell and ML Bynoe were the first ones to identify a human coronavirus 229E. 
  • They isolated the virus from the nasal washing of a male child who had symptoms of common cold. 
  • They termed the strain B814 and later in 1968 the term “coronavirus” was accepted.

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