The third coronavirus epidemic in the third millennium: what's next?

The current epidemic of a new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), recently officially named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has reopened the issue of the role and importance of coronaviruses in human pathology (1-5). This epidemic definitively confirms that this heretofore relatively harmless family of viruses, Coronaviridae, includes major pathogens of epidemic potential. The COVID-19 epidemic has clearly demonstrated the power of infectious diseases, which have been responsible for many devastating epidemics throughout history. The epidemiological potential of emerging infectious diseases, especially zoonoses, is affected by numerous environmental, epidemiological, social, and economic factors (6,7). Emerging zoonoses pose both epidemiological and clinical challenges to health care professionals.