The coronavirus causes a type of pneumonia and its symptoms include fever and difficulty in breathing, which are similar to many other respiratory diseases.
That, in turn, can create problems when screening people for the virus.
The Wuhan virus belongs to the same family of infections as SARS, which originated in southern China in 2002 before spreading to 26 countries, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing around 800.
The coronavirus is also similar to the MERS or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which first developed in the Middle East and killed 787 people in 2015.
source: express.co.uk