Untraceable virus clusters ‘worrying’

Different patterns of transmission detected

IN SOUTH Korea, Singapore and Iran, clusters of infections are leading to a jump in cases of the new viral illness outside China. But it is not the numbers that are worrying experts: it’s that increasingly they can’t trace where the clusters started.

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials said China’s crackdown on parts of the country bought time for the rest of the world to prepare for the new virus. But as hot spots emerge around the globe, trouble finding each source – the first patient who sparks every new cluster – might signal the disease has begun spreading too widely for tried-and-true public health steps to stamp it out.

That worst-case isn’t here yet, the WHO insists. It isn’t convinced that countries outside China need more draconian measures, but it pointed to spikes in cases in Iran and South Korea to warn that time may be running out to contain the virus.

“What we see is a very different phase of this outbreak depending where you look,” said the WHO’S Dr Sylvie Briand. “We see different patterns of transmission in different places.”

The WHO defines a global pandemic as a disease spreading on two continents, although some public health experts would call an outbreak a pandemic if the spread is over a wide area or across many international borders.

The newest red flag: Iran reported 18 cases, including four deaths, in just two days. The cluster began in Qom, a popular religious destination, but it’s not clear how. Worse, infected travellers from Iran already have been found in Lebanon and Canada.

In South Korea, most of the more than 280 new cases detected since Wednesday are linked to a church in Daegu and a nearby hospital. But health authorities have not yet found the “index case”, the person among the church’s 9000 followers who set off the chain of infections. There also have been several cases in the capital, Seoul, where the infection routes have not yet been traced.

A cluster of cases isn’t inherently worrying – in fact, it’s expected as an infection that’s easy to spread is carried around the world by travellers. The first line of defence is to isolate the sick to treat them and quarantine people until the incubation period is over.

But as the virus becomes more widespread, trying to trace every contact would be futile, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said. There’s no way to predict if the recent clusters will burn out or trigger widespread transmission.

Chinese president Xi Jinping thanked US billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates after his foundation donated $100 million (R1.5billion) to detect, fight and to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, state media report. |