Challenges to prevent and control the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (COVID-19) / 中华流行病学杂志

An outbreak of severe pneumonia of unknown cause was reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The infectious virus was soon identified and named as 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCov). The name of the coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) was given by WHO on 11 February 2020. It has so far caused about 118 000 cases in 114 countries including China and was characterized as a pandemic by WHO on 11 March. We still face great challenges in control of the epidemic: uncertain initial source of infection, infected populations widely scattered, complex routs of transmission, populations generally susceptible, high contagiousness of the virus, and finally vaccines unlikely available in the near future.