Chinese urged to avoid crowds as viral infection kills at least nine
● Over 400 cases centred on Wuhan ● Experts fear a global emergency
Chinese health authorities urged people in the city of Wuhan to avoid crowds and public gatherings after warning that a new viral illness that has infected more than 400 people and killed at least nine could spread further.
The appeal came as the World Health Organisation (WHO) convened a group of independent experts to advise whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.
The numb er of new cases has risen sharply in China – the centre of the outbreak. There we re 440 confirmed cases as of midnight Tuesday in 13 jurisdictions, said Li Bin, deputy director of the National Health Commission.nine people have died, all in Hubei province, since the outbreak emerged in its provincial capital of W uh an late last month.
“There has already been human-to-human transmission and infection of medical workers,” Mr Li said at a news conference with health experts. “Evidence has shown that the disease has been transmitted through the respiratory tract and there is the possibility of viral mutation.”
The illness comes from a newly identified type of coronavirus, a family of viruses that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as the SARS outbreak that spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002-03 and killed about 800 people.
Some experts have drawn parallels between the new coronavirus and Middle Eastern respirator y syndrome – another coronavirus that does not spread very easily among humans and is thought to be carried by camels.
But WHO’S Asia office tweeted this week “there may now be sustained human-tohuman transmission”, which raises the possibility the epidemic is spreading more easily and may no longer require an animal source to spark infections, as officials initially reported. Authorities in Thailand yesterday confirmed four cases – a Thai national and three Chinese visitors. Japan, South Korea, the United States and Taiwan have all reported one case each.
All of the illnesses were of people from Wuhan or who recently travelled there.
“The situation is under control here,” Thai public health minister Anutin Charnvirakul said, adding there were no reports of the infection spreading to others. “We checked all of them – taxi drivers, people who wheeled the wheelchairs for the patients, doctors and nurses who worked around them.”
Macao, a former Portuguese colony that is a semi- autonomous Chinese city, reported one case yesterday. Some experts said they believed the threshold for the outbreak to be declared an international emergency had been reached.
Dr Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious disease sat Oxford University, said there were three criteria for such a determination: that the outbreak was an extraordinary event; that there was a risk of international spread; and that a globally co - ordi - nated response was required.
“In my opinion, those three criteria have been met ,” he said.
In response to the US case, President Donald Trump said: “We do have a plan and we think it’s going to be handled very well. We’ve already handled it very well… we’re in very good shape and I think China’s in very good shape also.”
In Wuhan, pharmacies limited sales of face masks to one package per customer. Residents said they were not overly concerned as long as they took preventive measures.
“As an adult, I am not to o worried about the disease ,” Yang Bin, the father of a seven-year-old, said after buying a mask. “I think we are more worried about our kids.”
Medical workers in protective suits could be seen carrying supplies and stretchers into Wuhan Medical Treatment Centre.