Abstract
From Wuhan, China in December 2019, patients having pneumonia due to a novel corona virus reported first time1
. The World
Health Organization (WHO) declared this Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome infection, due to corona virus (SARS-CoV-2), and
named it Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)2
.
Historically, in literature around 1890’s a respiratory disease pandemic reported which was presumed that it could be due to a
coronavirus jump from animal respiratory disease known as Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia which was highly infectious, with
high mortality. This virus affected cattle herds globally during 1870 to 1890, and supposedly caused a human pandemic in 1889-
1890. Clinically, this infection characterized by a fever, general feeling of unwell, discomfort and marked central nervous system
symptoms responsible for more than a million fatalities predominantly in aged population all over the world. Although, the modernday medical science investigations has related this epidemic to H2N2 influenza virus but utter evidence relating this virus to
epidemic was not confirmed due to the unavailability of preserved tissue samples from that period. Another assumption is that if
this influenza virus was not responsible for 1889-1890 pandemic, then another most recently traced ancestor of the bovine
coronavirus (hCoV-OC43) to about 1890’s, which is having potentials to invade and attack the central nervous system3,4
.
In 1918-1919 the most severe pandemic in recent history, the Spanish flue caused by H1N1 virus having avian origin gene, affected
almost 500 million people and at least 50 million death worldwide5
Ishtiaq Ahmed. (2020) Corona Virus: A brief Historical Perspective, Isra Medical Journal, Volume 12, Issue 4.
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