Supplementary Data: Antibody-dependent Enhancement of 2019-nCoV Infection, a Major Concern for Prevention

Less than two months after the new coronavirus raged, it has already become a public health problem in the world. Till today, the infectivity and lethality of the virus are not clear enough. Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University described in detail the clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)-infected pneumonia (NCIP) in Wuhan1. It reported that the in-hospital mortality was 4.3%, which is close to the data in Wuhan (4.1%) but twice the national average (2.0%). The data as of February 9, 2020, shows that the mortality in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, is higher than the average value of other cities in the province (1.5%), and is even higher than the national average except Hubei Province (0.59%). The much higher mortality in Wuhan compared to the whole country raises confusion in people. One possible, but certainly not entirely explained, reason for this phenomenon is the antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of 2019-nCoV infection, which we should pay more attention to the future plague prevention.