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An Expert On Infectious Diseases Talks Coronavirus

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
This is a highly magnified, digitally colorized transmission electron microscopic image of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS), one of three novel coronaviruses to emerge this century.

There is a plane headed for Texas from China. Onboard are Americans who are evacuating the city of Wuhan, ground zero for the novel coronavirus that is circing the globe. They are at risk of infection, and will be quarantined on Lackland Air Force Base for two weeks. If, after two weeks, they show no symptoms of the virus, they will be allowed to leave.

Lackland is preparing to house the evacuees, San Antonio area hospitals are preparing to care for infected patients if any of them get sick, and many people have questions about the virus, how serious it might be, and why the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control have declared public health emergencies.

TPR Bioscience and Medicine Reporter Bonnie Petrie talked about all of this with the president of Texas Biomedical Research Institute Dr. Larry Schlesinger. You can hear their conversation here.

For more information on nCoV:

World Health Organization

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

San Antonio Metro Health

Bonnie Petrie can be reached at Bonnie@TPR.org and on Twitter at @kbonniepetrie.