In December 2019, many people in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei, China developed an infection and respiratory symptoms from an unknown virus. Within a month, scientists named the novel corona-virus as 2019-nCoV, and the WHO subsequently named the disease produced by SARS-CoV-2 as COVID-19. Shortly, the COVID-19 rapidly spread through almost worldwide. The WHO declared a global health emergency on January 30, 2020 and pandemic status on March 11, 2020, respectively. Since SARS-CoV-2 RNA was first detected in a stool specimen and the autopsy report for a man with COVID-19 which showed segmental dilatation and stenosis in the small intestine, much attention has been paid to the gastrointestinal tract infection of SARS-CoV-2. Especially in the context of inflammatory bowel disease( IBD), several questions arise. The biggest concern is if patients with IBD have an increased or a decreased risk to suffer from COVID-19? Although research has not figured out the susceptibility of IBD patients to virus infection, immunosuppressive drugs were considered potential risk factors. Besides the recommendations provided to the general population, patients with IBD need more professional advice.

Background: Recently, there has been a global demand toward finding new treatments to control the new pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19). The aim of this systematic review was to study the effects of ozone therapy on COVID-19 patients, as well as reviewing the available supporting evidence. Methods: Electronic databases including MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE, Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), and TRIP, as well as clinical trial registries and preprint sources were searched for published evidence-based articles. In addition, a hand searching was conducted regarding the attained articles published until 6 April 2020 using MeSH and free text keywords with no language limitation. Articles were screened, categorized and extracted for the relative data, which are reported in a descriptive manner. Results: Among 234 articles, 9 were selected to be reviewed for the inclusion criteria. No previously published original articles were found on the efficacy of ozone therapy on COVID-19. Five review studies on the potential role of systemic ozone therapy were found, in which it was concluded that ozone therapy is effective in controlling COVID-19 due to its antiviral, oxygenating, anti-inflammatory, oxidation balancing and immunomodulation effects. Three ongoing clinical trials were registered in China. Moreover, a preliminary report of an ongoing study in Italy on 46 patients (11 intubated and 35 non-intubated) indicated that 39 patients (84%) showed an improvement for the symptoms of the disease. Conclusion: Despite the promising hypothetical background, opinions of the expert arguing about the benefits of this method, and a preliminary report indicating the effectiveness of ozone therapy as a novel treatment option for COVID-19, there is still not enough evidence to prove it.

African swine fever (ASF) is emerging in Vietnam and poses a continuing severe threat to the swine industry. A histopathological study of clinical samples collected during the August to September 2019 outbreak of ASF was performed to determine the characteristic lesions. We analyzed samples from eight ASFV-infected farms. Histopathological results revealed the characteristic lesions of the acute to the subacute clinical form of ASF. Immunohistochemical results showed ASFV viral antigen distribution in mononuclear cells/macrophage in various organs, hepatocytes, and renal tubular epithelium. Molecular analysis of partial capsid protein 72 gene revealed that ASFV strain from the eight separate outbreaks belonged to genotype II.

Repurposing of existing antiviral drugs, immunological modulators, and supportive therapies represents a promising path toward rapidly developing new control strategies to mitigate the devastating public health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. A comprehensive text-mining and manual curation approach was used to comb and summarize the most pertinent information from existing clinical trials. Drugs with previous efficacy against related betacoronaviruses like SARS and MERS were also systematically evaluated as potentially promising candidates for drug repositioning.

Event-based surveillance (EBS) systems monitor a broad range of information sources to detect early signals of disease emergence, including new and unknown diseases. Following the emergence of a newly identified coronavirus –so-called COVID-19, in humans in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, we conducted a retrospective analysis of the capacity of three Event-Based Systems (EBS) systems (ProMED, HealthMap and PADI-web) to detect early signals of this emergence. We evaluated the changes in the online news vocabulary coinciding with the period before / after the identification of COVID-19, as well as the assessment of its contagiousness and pandemic potential. ProMED was the timeliest EBS, detecting signals one day before the official notification. At this early stage, the specific vocabulary was related to “pneumonia symptoms” and “mystery illness”. Once COVID-19 was identified, the vocabulary changed to virus family and specific COVID-19 acronyms. Our results suggest the three EBS systems are complementary regarding data sources, and all need improvements regarding timeliness. EBS methods should be adapted to the different stages of disease emergence to improve the early detection of future emergence of unknown pathogens.

Objective: The global outbreak of COVID-19 is emerged recently and this poses stress on health and well-being of the people in the worldwide including in Indonesia. Public interest in this new issue largely reflects people’s attention to COVID-19 and their willingness to take precautionary actions. This study aimed to examine public awareness on the prevention of COVID-19 using Google Trend (GT) . Methods: Using GT, we retrieved public query data for the term of (coronavirus, handwashing, hand sanitizer, and facemask) between 12 December 2019 and 4 April 2020 in the specific locations of Indonesia nationwide and several provinces. The correlation between daily search volumes on the topic related to COVID-19 and the daily number of people infected with COVID-19 was analyzed. Results: Our studies observed the overall search trend of RSV regarding COVID-19 after the global outbreak and the announcement of first covid-19 case in Indonesia, the search related to COVID-19, and other defined terms in Indonesia increased rapidly. In addition, search related to face mask were gradually increased. Searches for face mask and hand sanitizer is more popular than handwashing. There is a positive correlation between daily RSV on COVID-19 and other defined terms and the daily number of people infected with COVID-19 nationwide ( p <0·05). There are various interest to RSV related to COVID-19, and public awareness of COVID-19 was almost similar in some provinces, particularly searches related to facemask and hand sanitizer. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrates that GT could potentially define the proper timing and location for practicing appropriate risk communication strategies to prevent the spread of emerging disease. The study demonstrates that government should strengthen the publicity of COVID- 19 nationally, reinforce the public’s awareness on the prevention of COVID-19 and finally inform the importance of protecting individuals with appropriate and affordable precautionary measures.

The world is confronting a dire situation due to the recent pandemic of the novel coronavirus disease (2019-nCoV) with so far mortality cases of 100,000 all over the world. Currently, there are no effective enough treatment options for this previously unknown virus. The current drugs in pipline and some plausible drug are overviewed in this paper. The potential molecular targets of each steps of the 2019-nCoV drug life cycle is discussed and highlights here. Although different types of anti-viral targets are applicable for 2019-nCoV drug screenings, the more promising targets can be considered as protease and RNA polymerase. Based on the results from antiviral agents repurposing and clinical studies, the remdesivir could be an encouraging drug in the frontline to be administrated for 2019-nCoV. Much progress in understanding the 2019-nCoV the molecular details of its life cycle followed by the identification of therapeutic targets seems to be an efficient approach in discovering potential drugs.

Recently (2019), a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) first reported in Wuhan, China has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and is rapidly spreading throughout the globe which is associated with high morbidity and mortality, especially in the elderly and those with existing chronic conditions. SARS-CoV-2 infects cells through interaction of its surface glycoprotein with the human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2). This study conducted a analysis of mutation frequency in the surface glycoprotein of 796 sequenced SARS-CoV-2 isolates from different geographical locations in the GISAID and GenBank databases. Multiple sequence alignment analysis of the surface glycoprotein identified 64 different mutations at the protein level spanning multiple geographic locations globally. A cluster of mutations was identified in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the surface glycoprotein. Significantly, the analysis showed that 68.5% of the isolates contain a D614 residue compared to 31.5% which contain a G614 suggesting virus is spreading in two forms. Furthermore, our investigation found that one isolate from Belgium had acquired 5 cumulative mutations in the surface glycoprotein indicating possible antigenic drift. The findings of this study are of critical importance for the design of vaccines and novel drugs against this severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.

In December 2019, an unknown pneumonia-disease outbreak emerged in in Wuhan, China. The incriminated causative pathogen, later termed SARS-CoV-2, was found to be a novel lineage of betacoronavirus, belonging to subgenus sarbecovirus. Although China has roughly controlled the epidemic, but the situation in the rest of the world is becoming less and less optimistic. Scientists and pharmaceutical companies around the world are actively looking for treatment options. Till now, there are couple of drugs undergo the clinical trial including convalescent plasma, which possess valid methods of treating or preventing the disease. And since considerable studies had already been carried out based on the analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s genome sequence and its comparison with that of the other SARS-like virus, let us review in detail and, hopefully, they might provide us with some key features for answering some of the crucial questions relating to its origin, epidemiology, and treatment to better contain the virus. Basing on that, clues on how to develop a fast and accurate viral diagnostic method and the way of treating it may also be provided. Up to now, the treating option constrained only in a few drugs (Remdesivir, Chloroquine, Hydroxychloroquine, Favipiravir etc.), in addition to the Chinese herb as well as convalescent plasma. More drugs are only roughly screened by virtual screening, and they are still far from not achieving the minimum standards for clinical treatment application. Also, the expected vaccine was reported but it just started the very first trial and still needs time to apply on a large scale. Although the very origin of this virus has been determined to be bats, but till now we still can’t determine what kind of animal plays the role of the intermediate host, leaving an issue that needs a further investigation.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is causing the pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The crystal structure of SARS-CoV-2 in complex with its receptor human ACE2 (hACE2) has been recently solved and the main amino acid residues involved in the complex virus-receptor have been detected. To predict whether lagomorphs can be infected by SARS-CoV-2, ACE2 sequences from rabbits, American pikas and from other mammals were compared with hACE2 sequences. Models of the complex formed by SARS-CoV-2 and ACE2 from lagomorphs and from other mammals were created for comparative studies. A low number of substitutions was found in lagomorph ACE2 sequences. Analysis of the contacts involved in the simulated complex SARS-CoV-2-ACE2 suggested that lagomorphs can be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, probably similarly to cats but lower than hamsters. These findings justify the planning of future in vitro and in vivo studies and suggest that more investigation should assess the epidemiological role of lagomorphs in SARS-CoV-2 spread. Furthermore, the risks to humans coming into close contacts with these animals should evaluated.

Bovine norovirus (BNoV) is a recently identified calicivirus in the genus Norovirus, which can cause enteric disease with clinical signs including vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and mortality in neonatal calves. BNoV has been reported in different countries all over the world. We collected 39 fecal, blood, and tissue samples from calves with diarrhea from Hebei in northern China in 2019. The presence of BNoV was determined by PCR only two samples (5.1%) were positive. The complete genome of the newly identified strain Bo/CH/HB/BD/2019 was successfully sequenced (GenBank accession number: MN480761). Based on the existing gene sequences in the GenBank database, evolutionary trees were constructed. Sequence analysis showed that the nucleotide sequence homology of the Bo/CH/HB/BD/2019 genome with BNoV genomes in GenBank was 84.0–92.4%. Bo/CH/HB/BD/2019 has a GIII.2 genotype, and further analysis of its VP1 gene revealed four amino acid substitutions, i.e., 225C, 246T, 624T, and 945T. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the complete genome of a BNoV isolate from northern China has been sequenced.

A document by Jing Liu, written on Authorea.

I have some comments on TBED recently published paper titled “Serological survey of SARS-CoV-2 for experimental, domestic, companion and wild animals excludes intermediate hosts of 35 different species of animals” by Deng JH, et al.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 infection has become a pandemic cause of viral pneumonia. Elderly patients with chronic comorbidities are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, and are more likely to have complications that can lead to severe or even fatal consequences. It is important to seek the appropriate effective treatment for these susceptible persons. Here we report a case of elderly COVID-19 patient with hypertension, which was a member of the familial cluster COVID-19 in Enshi City, Hubei Province, China. He successfully survived after removal of tracheal intubation and inhalation of the invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). This report aims to provide an inspiration for the prevention and treatment of critical COVID-19 cases.

Ranaviruses can infect both captive and wild cold-blooded vertebrates, leading to significant economic and environmental losses. With the cases of ranavirus infection increasing, many ranavirus genomic sequences were published, but little is known about ranavirus taxonomy on a whole genome level. In this study, 44 ranaviruses core genes were identified in 32 ranaviruses genome suquences by using PanX. The Neighbor joining phylogenetic trees (NJ-tree) based on 44 ranaviruses core genes and 24 iridoviridae core genes and composition vector phylogenetic tree (CV-Tree) based on whole genome were constructed. The three of phylogenetic trees showed that 32 ranavirus isolates can be divided to 4 different subspecies including GIV-like, EHNV-like, FV3-like and CMTV-like, and subspecies taxonomic position of three phylogenetic trees were consistent. However, the phylogenetic position of ToRV could not be determined if it belongs to FV3-like or CMTV-like group. Subsequently, we carried out dot plot analysis and confirmed that ToRV should belong to CMTV-like group. Based on dot plot analysis and phylogenetic trees, taxonomic classification of ranaviruses were confirmed. Finally, 4 genes which are suitable for the construction of phylogenetic tree were selected from ranavirus core genes by recombination analysis, substitution saturation analysis and single-gene phylogenetic analysis. Phylogenetic tree based on concatenated sequences of the 4 selected genes showed that classification of subspecies was identical with 3 of the phylogenetic trees. Conclusion: our results confirmed taxonomic identification of ranaviruses, the 4 selected genes used in phylogenic analysis will make taxonomic identification more convenient and accurate.

In December 2019, with the outbreak of the unidentified pneumonia in Wuhan, China, a novel coronavirus was confirmed to be accountable for this disease and aroused great attention of the entire world. World Health Organization (WHO) officially named the novel coronavirus as SARS-CoV-2 and the unknown pneumonia as Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19). Up to April 13, 2020, there have been 83696 confirmed cases in China and 1837079 cases were totally confirmed in 209 countries outside of China with 119138 fatalities. The main manifestations are usually fever, cough, fatigues, breathlessness, and among others. To date, specific antiviral agents against the SARS-CoV-2 are not available. Extensive measures to reduce person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 have been implemented to control the current outbreak. In this review, we detail current evidence and understanding of the etiology, epidemiology, clinical symptoms and current strategies on diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of COVID-19, which may provide a reference for future studies and help for the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been declared a pandemic of 2020 by World Health Organization (WHO). Due to its novelty there is very little knowledge available about it, and thus there is a great need of collection of data related to COVID-19, from all around the world. Hence, we have conducted this study, collecting daily data on COVID-19 from National Institute of Health (NIH) Pakistan and WHO, to map the epidemiology of COVID-19 outbreak, forecast its trajectory from 4th April till 30th April, and review the preventive measures taken by government of Pakistan. The data was collected from NIH-Pakistan and WHO official released reports, analysis was done using SPSS version 23 and forecasting was made using time series modeler / expert modeler. The purpose of this study is to draw the attention of international as well as national governing bodies towards the rapidly rising number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan, and the urgency to evaluate the efficacy of currently implemented strategy against COVID-19. According to this study, the spread of COVID-19 is slower than predicted, but there is an alarming increase in growth rate now, and the predicted COVID-19 cases by the end of April can go up to around 8,000 or higher. Hence, it is crucial for the governing bodies to re-evaluate the current situation and implemented strategy. Discussions should be conducted by the administrators and researchers for any change in the strategy if required, before the situation further aggravates.

Abstract This study estimated the annual economic burden of bovine and human brucellosis in Adjumani District, Uganda in the year 2016 as extension of a larger study that determined seroprevalence and risk factors for brucellosis in cattle and humans. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to 25 households with Brucella seropositive cattle herds and 14 households with at least one Brucella seropositive person in order to capture economic burden in cattle and humans respectively. Data were analyzed using MS Excel 2007. In cattle, the total economic burden was estimated as a sum of costs associated with mortality of Brucella seropositive cows that abort and cost of morbidity of brucellosis among the cattle population. In humans, brucellosis burden was quantified in Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and monetary cost of human brucellosis episode. The total bovine brucellosis economic burden was estimated at UGX 2,692,809,443 (745,930.41). The economic burden associated with mortality of Brucella seropositive cows after abortion was UGX 23,488,155. Burden associated with morbidity was UGX 2,669,321,288 (USD 739,424) per year for the district cattle herd (131,282 cattle). The value of calves lost from abortion and perinatal mortality and milk lost from non-aborted seropositive cows accounted for 47% and 3.3% respectively of the total burden. The burden of human brucellosis was estimated at 887 DALYs, average monetary cost of human brucellosis episode was UGX 760,590 (USD 210.7) Out of which indirect cost (attributed to 14 days of lost income from not working), direct medical expenses (diagnostics, consultation and drugs), direct non-medical expenses (transport and food consumed) incurred by a human brucellosis patient amounted to 55.5% (117USD), 11.84% (USD 24.94) and 32.7% (USD 68.9), respectively. One Health approach is recommended for management of brucellosis in livestock and humans in the district. Key words; Brucellosis, economic burden

The (COVID-19) coronavirus disease 19 is a highly transmittable and pathogenic viral infection that is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which has recently emerged in Wuhan province of China and rapidly spread throughout the world. Though the intermediate source of origin and its transfer to humans is not very well known, but the fast human to human transfer has been confirmed widely. There is no clinically approved antiviral drug or vaccine developed so far to be used against COVID-19. In the current review, we summarize and comparatively analyse the deadly virus and how it poses a constant threat to sub continental nations especially India. A number of ecological interventions are also suggested to protect humans and keep the virus carrying bats at a distance.

Continuous monitoring and analysis of the evolution, recombination and epidemic of avian influenza virus will help to prevent and control the emergence of new avian influenza virus. The genes of 153 H5N6 avian influenza viruses selected from our long-term surveillance data and the GISAID for the 2016-2019 period were dissected in detail. Our analysis shows that the genes of H5N6 AIVs have been divided into more lineages, and that mutations leading to amino acid replacement of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase occurred mainly between 2017 and 2018. All H5N6 viruses are differentiated into at least 20 distinct genotypes derived from different evolutionary pathways. G1 genotype has replaced other genotypes to become dominant genotype of AIV. The results of animal experiments show that H5N6 of different genotypes has high virulence to mice. which indicates that H5N6 AIVs, especially the reassortment strains, are a potential threat to public health.

Outbreak AlertsNovel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2 linked pandemic, started from Wuhan China during December 2019 (Guo et al., 2020 ). Transmission from the original place took place long before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a public emergency on 30th January 2020. As of 12th April, WHO has confirmed 1,614,951 live infected cases and 99,887 deaths in around 200 countries. In India, the first coronavirus positive case was reported from Kerala on 30th January 2020 (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2020d ). Later, the positive cases in India came from Delhi dweller who returned from Italy and a man from Telangana who returned from Dubai. After that, some positive cases were detected within Italian tourists and their tour guide in Rajasthan. Overall, the virus spread in the country has primarily occurred due to foreign travelers or Indian travelers coming from abroad.Currently, India is standing up in the initial stage of community transmission. As per 30th March 2020 Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has announced 1224 COVID-19 cases from all over the 27 states and union territories with maximum from Maharashtra (192 cases) and Kerala (202 cases) (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2020a ). The trend of COVID-19 in India has marked slow increase with the primary reproduction number R0 value 1.5 as compared to China (R0 value 2.3), Italy (R0 value 2.34) and Iran (R0 value 2.73) during their 3rd week from the onset of initial SARS CoV-2 positive cases (Cereda et al., 2020; Mandal et al., 2020; Zhao et al., 2020 ). On average, each patient transmits the infection to an additional 2.2 individuals. Based on data from the first cases in Wuhan and investigations by the China CDC, the incubation time can be from 3 to 7 days and up to 2 weeks as the longest time (95% CI, 9.2 to 18) (Singhal, 2020 ). As per the WHO 70th situation report, most of the European regions like Italy, Spain, France are dealing with up to 11%, 7.8%, 6.2%, of case-fatality rate, even more than China (4%)(Onder, Rezza, & Brusaferro, 2020; World Health Organization, 2020 ). Globally, the case-fatality rate is around 2-3% however, severely affected patients may die due to excessive alveolar damage, which leads to progressive respiratory failure as evident from many countries, including Italy and China. SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans. Along with SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 severe symptoms causing epidemics whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms (Li et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2020 ).For now, more than 500 whole-genome sequences of different strains of SARS-CoV are reported. Out of these, around 160 isolates have been reported in recent outbreaks mostly from China, Italy, Iran, the USA, Japan, Australia, France, and two from India as well. Two known Indian isolates SARS-CoV-2/166/human/2020/IND (GeneBank: MT050493.1) of 29,851 bp and SARS-CoV-2/29/human/2020/IND (GenBank: MT012098.1) of 29,854 bp are deposited by National Institute of Virology, Pune, Maharashtra. Although both strains are isolated from swabs of infected patients from Kerala, the sequencing of more isolates should be carried out regional wise across major infected areas. Further, systematic gene-level mutational analysis of local strains will enable researchers to identify several unique features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and the development of more efficient therapeutics and vaccines.Several properties of SARS-CoV-2 make its prevention difficult, namely, non-specific features of the disease, the infectivity even before the onset of symptoms, transmission from asymptomatic people, and long incubation period. Hence, the Indian Government has projected proactive measures to inhibit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 from initial careers coming from abroad to the local community. Implementation of 21 days lockdown all over the country has greatly helped to flatten the logarithm spread within the community (Government of India, 2020) . Meanwhile, to meet the requirement of personal protection equipment, masks and ventilators, and other essential items, the government is allowing domestic companies and manufacturers clearing quality tests to come-up with more supplies. The supply of N95 masks has been ramped up to 1,00,000/day by local manufactures mostly and DRDO (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2020b ).Moreover, total government laboratories approved and supported by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to provide diagnostic kit for SARS-CoV-2 testing has been increased to 123 all over the country(Indian Council of Medical Research, 2020b) . The government-led awareness programs based on WHO, CDC, and FAO recommendation on COVID-19 has been enforced to all the states (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2020c ). Besides, the state government issued instructions on the closing of all schools and colleges, malls, and any form of the public gathering. As per reports, a widely-used drug Chloroquine, has recently been reported as a potential broad-spectrum antiviral drug. It blocks the virus infection by increasing endosomal pH required for virus/cell fusion, as well as to interfere with the glycosylation of cellular receptors of SARS-CoV (Savarino, Di Trani, Donatelli, Cauda, & Cassone, 2006; Wang et al., 2020; Yan et al., 2013) . Indian government has allowed restricted use of Chloroquine among doctors and other staff members coming in direct contact with severe patients to avoid transmission (Indian Council of Medical Research, 2020a ). Besides, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization approved constricted public health use of lopinavir/ritonavir combination amongst symptomatic COVID-19 patients(Bhatnagar et al., 2020 ).

The recent pandemic caused by the 2019 outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has affected more than 1.3 million people resulting ~75000 deaths across 212 countries/territories as on 7th April 2020. The importation of the cases owing to enormous international travels from the affected countries is the foremost reason for local cycle of transmission. For a country like India, the second most populous country in the world with ~1.35 billion population, the management and control of 2019-nCoV domestic spread heavily relied on effective screening and strict quarantine of passengers arriving at various international airports in India from affected countries. Here, by extracting the data from FLIRT, an online airline database for more than 800 airlines, and scanning more than 180000 flights and 39.9 million corresponding passenger seats during 4th – 25th March, we show that India experienced the highest risk index of importing the passengers from middle eastern airports. Contrary to perception, travelers from China imposed lowest risk of importing the infected cases in India. This is clearly evident form the fact that while the number of infected cases were on the peak in China India was one of the least affected countries. The number of cases in India started exhibiting a sharp increase in the infected cases only after the European countries and USA recorded large number of infected cases. We further argue that while the number of cases in middle eastern countries may still be very low, the airports in middle eastern countries, particularly Dubai, being one of the largest transit hubs for international passengers, including arriving in India, might have posed a higher risk of getting infected with 2019-nCoV. We suggest that any future travel related disease infection screening at the airports should critically assess the passengers from major transit hubs in addition to affected country of origin.

The ongoing outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has already caused a worldwide pandemic, World Health Organization has raised COVID-19 global risk to very high. We aimed to share the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism taken in Mainland China and evaluate the effectiveness. Data were collected from the daily epidemic reports released by the national and provincial health commissions of China from January 21 to March 26, 2020. Global data were collected from daily situation reports by World Health Organization. Under the first-level public health emergency response, great achievements have been made in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Mainland China. As of March 26, the daily new deaths were less than 50 in nationwide recently. However, it is still a major challenge worldwide. The comprehensive and powerful control measures taken by Mainland China have proved to be effective and might be applicable to other regions.

This study reports outbreak of a new disease caused by Staphylococcus Pseudintermedius in Raccoon dogs. The disease occurred in a breeding farm of raccoon dogs in Guan County of Shandong Province in China in August of 2019. 47% (425/896) of raccoon dogs showed the abnormal symptoms; 17.6% (75/425) of them had sever skin and soft tissue infections(SSTIs), dyspnea and sever pathological lesions in lungs, hearts, livers, kidneys, etc; 4.2% (18/425) were dead in 4 weeks. The pathogen of the disease was identified as Staphylococcus pseudintermedius by mass spectrometer detection, microscopic examination and biochemical reaction test. Its nucleotide homology of 16SrDNA was 100% with thats of other published strains and its genotype was between American strain and Brazilian strain from other animal species. The isolated Staphylococcus pseudointermediate strain from the diseased raccoon dogs could cause ulceration and suppuration in the skins and sever pathological lesions in some organs of the infected mice, and it is confirmed as a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) strain by the amplification of mecA gene; and 12 sensitive drugs were screened by drug sensitivity test. Full attention should be paid to the great economic loss and the potential zoonotic risk caused by the Staphylococcus pseudintermedius in raccoon dogs, and this study can provide a reference for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of this new disease.