PETALING JAYA: The World Health Organization (WHO) was first alerted on Dec 31, 2019, to the presence of several pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China, which did not match any other known virus.
A week later, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus.
The new virus was temporarily named “2019-nCoV.”
On Feb 11, the WHO named the virus "Covid-19", which stands for ‘Corona Virus Disease’.
"The new virus is a coronavirus, which is a family of viruses that include the common cold, and viruses such as SARS and MERS," the WHO said on its website.
Since then, the virus has spread to more than 20 countries.
The following maps show the countries where the virus has spread, based on information from WHO and an online dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering which tracks the worldwide spread of the outbreak. The Star will constantly update this information, so bookmark this page.
Tap on each affected country for more info about the cases there:
The following are infographics by the Health Ministry which provides details about the confirmed and suspected Covid-19 cases in Malaysia:
The following is a video by the WHO which explains what the virus is and how we can protect ourselves:
