A newly identified virus originating in central China has spread between humans infecting more than 150 new patients, reports BBC.
This has confirmed a chief concern of authorities as the disease is transmitted around the country and across Asia.
Pneumonia taking lives
The prospect of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus, which causes a potentially deadly pneumonia that already has claimed three lives.
This is likely to raise fresh concern as tens of millions of Chinese citizens crisscross the country this week for the annual Lunar New Year holiday, the busiest travel period of the year.
The new warnings came on a day when the number of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus more than tripled to 218, according to Chinese state media and health authorities, including in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern metropolis of Shenzhen—three of the country’s biggest and most affluent cities.
It also appeared in South Korea for the first time. State broadcaster CCTV said on Monday evening there were seven suspected cases in other parts of the country, including Shandong in the east, and the south-western provinces of Sichuan, Guangxi and Yunnan.
Human to Human transmission
Dr. Zhong, who is leading an expert committee on the outbreak for China’s cabinet-level National Health Commission, said 14 medical staff involved in treating the new coronavirus have themselves been infected with the disease.
Yang Gonghuan, the former deputy head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a separate interview with the China Business Journal newspaper that human-to-human transmission of the disease had occurred.
Earlier Monday, the World Health Organization said the spread of the disease was likely the product of “some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.”
The sudden spread of the disease is likely to spark questions over the transparency of disclosures by Chinese health authorities.
Measures to keep the situation under control
China’s National Health Commission said it had sent working groups to all provinces to oversee outbreak prevention, describing the situation as “controllable”.
Hospitals in Shanghai and Beijing and in Zhejiang province have “comprehensively” strengthened examination procedures. In Shenzhen, temperature checks have been put in place in airports, ports and railway stations.
More than 100 patients with symptoms were waiting to be seen at the Xiehe hospital in Wuhan at 6am on Monday. “If you are coming now, you have to wait between three and four hours before you can see the doctors,” a hospital worker said by phone.
At a hospital in Chaoyang district in Beijing, patients were being given masks and forms to fill out, detailing any recent travel to Wuhan. A nurse said preventive measures were also being taken to protect doctors.
Probable cause for Wuhan outbreak
Coronaviruses are transmitted between animals and people, and the outbreak in Wuhan has been linked to a now-closed seafood market where live animals were reportedly sold.
South Korean authorities said Monday that a 35-year-old Chinese woman who had flown into the country from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak first occurred, had contracted the coronavirus.
The previous three patients who have been identified outside China—two Chinese tourists in Thailand and a man from Japan—had all traveled from the Wuhan area.
Going global
In the U.S., where no cases have so far been detected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection have begun screening people traveling from Wuhan for fevers, coughs or difficulty breathing.
Health authorities in Wuhan, a densely populated city of 19 million people, said Monday that the number of patients infected with the new coronavirus jumped to 198, from 62 on Sunday. The statement said 35 of those cases were severe, while nine were critical.
The death of a third infected patient occurred over the weekend, Wuhan authorities said Monday, without offering details. In the case of the two earlier fatalities, authorities had previously said the men suffered from existing illnesses.
The overall count of confirmed cases doesn’t include suspected cases that have sprung up in a number of Chinese provinces, including Shandong on the east coast, Sichuan in the interior and Yunnan and Guangxi on the southwestern border with Vietnam, according to CCTV’s report.
Separately, five suspected cases were reported by health authorities in coastal Zhejiang province, just south of Shanghai on the country’s east coast.
While the newly discovered coronavirus is believed to be less serious than SARS, which killed hundreds of people, the pneumonia-like virus is in the same class of pathogens and appears to be spreading quickly.
Patients quarantined
In many cases, patients did travel to Wuhan and showed symptoms of fever and fatigue.
The Chinese patient in South Korea had flown into Incheon International Airport from Wuhan and was quarantined by airport authorities before being transferred to a medical center for treatment, according to South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Shanghai, the one confirmed case was a 56-year-old female who had traveled from Wuhan, according to the city’s health authorities.
Beijing has five confirmed cases, according to state media; a district authority has said that two patients had returned from Wuhan.
One of the confirmed cases in southern Guangdong province is 10 years old, according to local authorities. Most of the other infected patients who have been identified by authorities were elderly.
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Source: BBC
