Coronavirus test results take time

Health experts say faster process to ID cases needed

If you are worried your cough or fever are symptoms of coronavirus, don’t expect a quick confirmation. Once your health provider tests you, the wait begins.

As 2019 Novel Coronavirus cases mount, health experts say a faster process for identification, containment and isolation of cases in the U.S. is needed — quickly — to break the chain of spread. This comes as the World Health Organization on Thurday declared a public health emergency of international concern over the outbreak.

“Public-health authorities and health-care systems are on high alert for potential cases. But authorities can’t act quickly without a test that can diagnose the condition rapidly,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and

Drug Administration, wrote in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

Infectious disease experts are working on a quick diagnostic test for the deadly coronavirus, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been unclear about when such a test would be made available to health providers.

“They have asked specimens be sent to the CDC and I think the fear might be whether the samples are contagious,” said Bindu Mayi, an infectious disease specialist and professor of microbiology at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. “We are at the beginning of an outbreak in the U.S. and I think the CDC wants to minimize the people coming in contact with

the specimens.”

Mayi said quicker test results — especially as the virus transmits person to person — would help stop the spread, but for now, even when the CDC gets the test results back, they may be cautious in confirming. “This is brand new here so they probably don’t know what with what level of certainty they can say it is conclusive.”

So, for now, the Florida Department of Health recommends that people experiencing flu-like symptoms visit their current health provider.

A doctor would take a blood sample and respiratory specimen and then ship the specimen to the CDC in Atlanta. The health provider would isolate the patient or send that person home to wait a week or more before learning whether the test is positive for the coronavirus strain that is rampant in China with more than 8,000 confirmed cases.

As part of the screening process, the CDC has instructed health providers to ask patients with lower respiratory illnesses whether they have visited Wuhan City within 14 days before the symptoms appeared, or have been in contact with someone who has a confirmed case of coronavirus. If so, the health provider has been instructed to notify the Florida Department of Health and send specimens to the CDC.

Across the U.S., 92 tests are pending and the CDC has confirmed six cases of coronavirus in Arizona, California, Washington and Illinois. The most recent confirmed case in Illinois is the spouse of someone who had contracted the virus in Wuhan and the first to spread from person to person in the United States.

One of the pending tests is a student from China who attended a Yale University conference with 1,500 students from around the world, including 30 from South Florida. The student from China was taken to the hospital with a cough and fever.

At a news briefing on

Thursday, Nancy Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said health officials are looking into whether it is possible to test for the virus before symptoms appear.

Meanwhile, screening at airports for international travelers coming into the U.S. mostly consists of asking questions and taking temperatures.

In Miami, where federal officials began screening international passengers this week, the process is much less intense than in the five main U.S. airports with direct flights from China: New York’s John F. Kennedy, Chicago’s O’Hare, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta. In those airports, the CDC has been checking inbound Chinese travelers from Wuhan City since Jan. 17.

Screening in Miami is focused on asking incoming passengers about travel to China and checking for coronavirus symptoms such as fever and cough by taking temperatures with a handheld thermometer, according to the CDC. The process does not rely on thermalimaging cameras to check passengers for fever, as has been the case at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles and JFK in New York.

Hospitals in Florida began to prepare for coronavirus last week, telling staff to ask about travel when patients arrive with flu-like symptoms, equipping staff with high-grade surgical masks and readying isolation rooms.

At this time, there is no cure or vaccine for coronavirus, just treatment for the respiratory illness that typically comes with it. Florida does not have a confirmed case of coronavirus and health officials would not confirm whether tests in the state are pending.

“We are as prepared as possible to provide health officials and providers with resources,” said Alberto Moscoso, communications director for the Florida Department of Health.