Outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, China: The mystery and the miracle

Since December 2019, a total of 41 cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology have been confirmed in Wuhan city, Hubei Province, China. Wuhan city is a major transportation hub with a population of more than 11 million people. Most of the patients visited a local fish and wild animal market last month. At a national press conference held today, Dr. Jianguo Xu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who led a scientific team announced that a new-type coronavirus, tentatively named by World Health Organization as the 2019-new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), had caused this outbreak (1).