Emerging Viruses without Borders: The Wuhan Coronavirus

Liu, Shan-Lu; Saif, Linda

Viruses emerge and re-emerge globally without consideration for borders. In the recent past, we have witnessed outbreaks of SARS, Ebola, Chikungunya, and Zika [4] . With each new outbreak, lives are lost, and the world is placed on high alert. Lessons have been learned from the initial coverup and misidentification of the SARS pathogen in 2003 [5, 6] , and the recent slow response of the World Health Organization to the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak [7] . From this perspective, it is understandable that Chinese scientists cautiously released the identity and genome sequence of this new virus [3] . However, transparency on disease reporting to the public and data sharing with international colleagues must continue. With an increasing number of new cases of infection by the new coronavirus reported in China and neighboring countries, such as Japan and Thailand [8] , human-to-human transmission should be thoroughly investigated.