Deadly new virus spreads to major cities as airports start screenings
THE number of cases of a deadly new Sars-like virus has tripled with the outbreak spreading to major cities across the country, authorities revealed today.
In Wuhan, where the coronavirus appears to have originated, an additional 136 cases have been confirmed, bringing the total of infected patients to 198. A patient there died over the weekend, making the death toll three.
Two people in Beijing and one in the southern city of Shenzhen have also been diagnosed with the virus.
The outbreak has put other countries on alert as millions of Chinese travel for the lunar new year. Authorities in Thailand and Japan have identified at least three cases, all involving people who recently travelled from Wuhan.
South Korea reported its first case today, when a 35-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan tested positive for the coronavirus a day after arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport. The woman has been isolated at a state-run hospital in Incheon city, officials said. At least half a dozen countries in Asia and three US airports have started screening passengers from central China.
Many of the initial cases had links to a seafood market in Wuhan, which was closed for an investigation. As hundreds of people who came into close contact with diagnosed patients were not infected themselves, the municipal health commission said the virus was not easily transmitted between humans but has not ruled out limited human-to-human transmission.
China’s national health commission said experts have judged the current outbreak to be “controllable”. “However, the source of the new type of coronavirus has not been found, we do not fully understand how the virus is transmitted, and changes in the virus still need to be closely monitored,” the commission said yesterday.
British experts believe the number infected could still be far greater than official figures suggest, with estimates closer to 1,700. Coronaviruses cause diseases ranging from the common cold to Sars, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. Sars first infected people in southern China in 2002 and spread to 24 countries, killing nearly 800.
The Chinese government initially tried to conceal the severity of the epidemic. “In the early days of Sars, reports were delayed and covered up,” said the Global Times. “That kind of thing must not happen again in China.”