WHO settles on an official name for virus: COVID-19

GENEVA — The disease caused by a new virus that emerged late last year in China and has since killed more than 1,000 people and sickened tens of thousands now has an official name: COVID-19. The acronym stands for coronavirus disease 2019, as the illness was first detected toward the end of last year.

At a news briefing Tuesday, the World Health Organization said it had decided on the name after consulting with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.

“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual, or group of people,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s directorgeneral. WHO also wanted a name that was “pronounceable and related to the disease,” he said.

Tedros said having a name for the new disease is important to prevent the use of other names that might be stigmatizing.

“It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus outbreaks,” he said.

The death toll from the epidemic is continuing to climb.

Chinese officials said Tuesday that 1,016 people had died from the coronavirus, with most of the deaths occurring in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

A total of 42,638 virus infections have been recorded on the Chinese mainland, and most were also in Hubei.

The crossing of more grim t hresholds has dimmed optimism that the near-quarantine of some 60 million people in Hubei and other disease-control measures are working.

In Hong Kong, authorities evacuated some residents of an apartment block after two cases among those living there raised suspicion that the virus may be spreading through the building's plumbing.

It was reminiscent of the SARS outbreak that killed hundreds in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. The biggest number of connected cases in that outbreak were in one apartment complex where the virus spread through sewage pipes.

In the United States, nearly 200 evacuees were cleared Tuesday to end their two-week quarantine at a California military base where they had been staying since flying out of China. None of those who flew into March Air Reserve Base has tested positive for the disease, health authorities said, although one evacuee at another base was found to have the virus and was in hospital isolation.

The group arrived from China on Jan. 29 aboard chartered flights from Wuhan.

There have been 13 confirmed cases in the United States.

More than 460 cases have been confirmed outside mainland China, including two deaths in Hong Kong and the Philippines. Of those, 135 are quarantined aboard a cruise ship in Yokohama, near Tokyo.

There are no proven treatments or vaccines for the new and still-mysterious virus.