COVID-2019

 

On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was alerted of an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan City, China, caused by an unknown virus. The virus was sequenced and identified as a novel strain of Coronavirus one week later on 7 January 2020. It belongs to the same family of viruses which include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

2019-nCoV is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus which is thought to be of zoonotic origin. Symptoms of those infected include fever, dry cough, fatigue, shortness of breath and respiratory distress.

Celtic Diagnostics supplies various reagents to detect, diagnose and study SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the Corona virus 2019 outbreak.  Celtic is able to supply and deliver robust and accurate Corona testing kits in South Africa and Africa.