You're listening to Business Daily with me, Justin Rowland.

Today, we will be asking an absolutely crucial question.

Where will the treatments for COVID-19 come from?

And how can we get them quickly enough?

We're in a position where we're faced with an entirely new pathogen,

and we just simply don't have the time to develop something from scratch.

We'll hear about the online forum that enable information about the coronavirus to be rapidly

shared worldwide.

Instead of having just a handful of peer reviewers look at it in private, we have the whole

world commenting on it and saying whether it's any good.

That's all on Business Daily here on the BBC World Service.

The Chinese health authorities say they're investigating the source of a mysterious viral pneumonia in the central city.

This is the very first report the BBC ran on the emergence in China of what was then a completely new virus.

So far, officials have ruled out several illnesses behind the virus, including influenza, avian influenza and common respiratory.

That report was broadcast on the 3rd of January this year.

In the three months since then, that virus

has put a third of the world in lockdown as hundreds of thousands of people have been infected.

Tens of thousands have died. Reducing the toll of illness and death is now the priority, and that

means the world needs to act fast. The good news is the virus itself

has since become much less mysterious. In fact, we already know an extraordinary amount about SARS-CoV-2

to use its scientific name. That is thanks in significant part to the work of an online forum

for sharing research into health and medical issues.

...