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New report says coronavirus outbreak doubling every 6.4 days but it’s less deadly than SARS

Coronavirus seems to have greater 'infectivity' and lower fatality rate than SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreaks.

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New Delhi: The novel coronavirus outbreak, also known as 2019-nCoV, is doubling in case size every 6.4 days but it is still less fatal than earlier epidemics such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2002, says a new article published in a US medical journal.

Titled ‘2019 Novel Coronavirus — Important Information for Clinicians’, the report was published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Authors of the report — Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean at Emory School of Medicine, Georgia, and Preeti Malani, chief health officer at University of Michigan — have calculated the basic reproductive number of the coronavirus outbreak at 2.68.

It means one infected person can generate 2.68 other infected cases.

Reproductive number is the number of cases, on average, an infected individual will cause during her or his infectious period. The basic reproductive number represents what would happen if an infectious person were to enter a susceptible community.

For now, the authors say that coronavirus “seems to have greater infectivity and a lower case fatality rate” when compared to the two other zoonotic coronaviruses — SARS in 2002 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome [MERS] in 2012.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had on 30 January declared coronavirus outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”.

As of 4 February 2020, more than 20, 000 cases of 2019-nCoV have been reported and 98.9 per cent of them in China. The outbreak has led to over 400 deaths so far.


Also read: Why coronavirus has triggered a controversy over 2017 study on bats in Nagaland


Source of 2019-nCoV still unknown

Genetic sequencing data of the coronavirus has shown that it “shares 79.5 per cent of genetic sequence with SARS-CoV and has 96.2 per cent homology to a bat coronavirus”, the article notes.

However, it is still unclear “which animal is the intermediate species between bats and humans”. While for SARS it was civet cats, camels were the intermediate species in the case of MERS.

It is also not clear when transmission of coronavirus begins, although cases have been reported that suggest the virus can spread before symptoms appear (during the asymptomatic phase). The report says “it is likely that the majority of secondary cases come from symptomatic individuals”.

When a patient is down with fever and respiratory symptoms — in particular a dry cough — doctors should obtain a detailed travel history, the authors suggest.

“If the patient has a history of travel to Hubei province in the last 14 days, they should be considered a person under investigation,” the article says.

Quarantining may not work

Even though China has quarantined people to contain the spread of the disease, the new article says its effectiveness is “doubtful because these measures have not worked in prior outbreaks such as the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) or the 2014 Ebola pandemic”.

It also says that “quarantines are contrary to previously proven public health measures and the International Health Regulations”.

Chinese authorities, meanwhile, have suspended travel in and out of Wuhan, the epicentre of the disease. Similar travel bans have been followed in other cities of Hubei province. China has, in total, quarantined close to 50 million people.

Several other countries have also responded to the outbreak by suspending travel to and from China and health screening at airports that have flights to and from the nation.

“What interventions will ultimately control this outbreak is unclear because there is currently no vaccine, and the effectiveness of antivirals is unproven,” the report adds.

“However, basic public health measures such as staying home when ill, hand-washing, and respiratory etiquette including covering the mouth and nose during sneezing and coughing were effective in controlling SARS,” it says.


Also read: ‘Avoid Chinese people with a cough’ — Coronavirus fuels racism against Asians worldwide


 

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