A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019.

Zhu N1, Zhang D1, Wang W1, Li X1, Yang B1, Song J1, Zhao X1, Huang B1, Shi W1, Lu R1, Niu P1, Zhan F1, Ma X1, Wang D1, Xu W1, Wu G1, Gao GF1, Tan W1; China

Abstract

In December 2019, a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause was linked to a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China. A previously unknown beta-coronavirus was discovered through the use of unbiased sequencing in samples from patients with pneumonia. Human airway epithelial cells were used to isolate a novel corona-virus, named 2019-nCoV, which formed another clade within the sub-genus sarbe-covirus, Ortho-coronavirinae subfamily. Different from both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV is the seventh member of the family of coronaviruses that infect humans. Enhanced surveillance and further investigation are ongoing. (Funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Major Project for Control and Prevention of Infectious Disease in China.).