Covid-19 facts: Preventing and detecting the virus

Primary school pupils put on face masks donated by a non-profit organisation in this filepic. Face masks are actually better at preventing an infected person from spreading the coronavirus, rather than preventing an infected person from catching the virus.

Covid-19 is the name of the disease arising from the infection of a new (novel) coronavirus designated as SARS-CoV-2, also known as 2019-nCoV or the Wuhan virus.

It is the latest in a line of zoonotic diseases (or zoonoses) that has plagued humans ever since evolution begun. Zoonoses are diseases that are transmissible from a different species to humans.