新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情防控面临的挑战

2019年12月湖北省武汉市报告的不明原因重症肺炎聚集性病例事件被确定为新型冠状病毒感染。WHO于2020年2月11日将该病命名为COVID-19。截至3月10日，新型冠状病毒肺炎已造成包括我国在内的114个国家和地区出现了11.8万病例。3月11日WHO评估认为，新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情已呈现大流行特征。当前新型冠状病毒肺炎防控工作面临巨大挑战，主要是由于病原溯源困难、传染源分布广泛、传播途径多样、易感人群免疫水平较低、传染性较强和疫苗研发尚需时日等因素的影响。

Challenges to prevent and control the outbreak of COVID-19

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 COVID-19 was given by WHO on 11 February 2020. It has so far caused about 118 000 cases in 114 countries including China ending March 10, and was characterized as a pandemic by WHO on March 11. 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.