The University of Jos has announced Jan. 22 as its resumption date for the 2019/2020 academic session.

Mr. Abdullahi Abdullahi, the Deputy Registrar, Information and Publications of the university recently revealed this via a statement in Jos.

According to him, the decision was reached and approved by the Senate of the university, at its 4th special meeting on the 2019/2020 session, held on Monday.

He added that the amended academic calendar also means that lectures would continue as from Monday, Jan. 25.

His words, “The Senate of the University of Jos has considered and approved an amended Academic Calendar for 2019/2020 Session of the University. The Senate approved the calendar at its 4th Special Meeting on the 2019/2020 Session held on Monday, January 11.”

“Senate approved that students are to resume for the continuation of the session as from Friday, Jan. 22, with the reopening of the various campuses of the University.

“According to the amended academic calendar, lectures would continue as from Monday, Jan. 25.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.