Whistleblower doctor in critical condition
New vaccine work ongoing, but it may not come in time
— A Chinese doctor who got in trouble with authorities in the communist country for sounding an early warning about the deadly coronavirus outbreak lay in critical condition with the illness Friday, a hospital said amid conflicting reports about his fate.
“In the fight against the epidemic of the new coronavirus pneumonia, Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist of our hospital, was unfortunately infected. He is currently in critical condition and we are trying our best to rescue him,” Wuhan Central Hospital said in a social media post.
Late Thursday, Chinese media reports said the 34-year-old Li had died. And the World Health Organization tweeted: “We are deeply saddened by the passing of Dr Li Wenliang. We all need to celebrate work that he did” on the virus.
Li was reprimanded by local police for “spreading rumors” about the illness in late December, according to news reports. The outbreak, centered in Wuhan, has now infected over 28,200 people globally and killed more than 560.
The hospital’s social media post received nearly 500,000 comments in the first halfhour afterward, with many people hoping Li would pull through. One wrote: “We are not going to bed, we are here waiting for a miracle.”
Meanwhile, a newborn became the youngest known person infected with the virus. China finished building a second new hospital Thursday to isolate and treat patients and moved people with milder symptoms into makeshift quarantine centers at sports arenas, exhibition halls and other public spaces. And testing of a new antiviral drug was set to begin on patients.
A look at the latest developments in the outbreak:
Rising toll and youngest victim
While the overwhelming majority of deaths and infections haven been in China, more than 200 people with the illness have been reported in over two dozen other countries, including Japan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and the U.S.
China’s National Health Commission said the number of infected patients who were “discharged and cured” stood at 1,153.
The youngest patient is a baby born Saturday in Wuhan and confirmed positive just 36 hours after birth, authorities said.
“The baby was immediately separated from the mother after the birth and has been under artificial feeding. There was no close contact with the parents, yet it was diagnosed with the disease,” Zeng Lingkong, director of neonatal diseases at Wuhan Children’s Hospital, told Chinese TV.
Zeng said other infected mothers have given birth to babies who tested negative, so it is not yet known if the virus can be transmitted in the womb. That “needs further study,” he said.
The new virus is in the coronavirus family that includes MERS and SARS, and it causes fever, cough, shortness of breath and, in severe cases, pneumonia.
More hospital beds
A 1,500-bed hospital specially built to deal with the outbreak was completed in Wuhan, days after a 1,000bed hospital with prefabricated wards and isolation rooms began taking patients.
Wuhan is also operating an additional 132 quarantine sites with more than 12,500 beds, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Authorities are racing to increase the number of beds in Wuhan and the rest of hard-hit Hubei province, where the health care system has been so overwhelmed that some sick people have been turned away from hospitals and sent home, raising the risk of spreading the virus to others.
All together, more than 50 million people are under virtual quarantine in Hubei in an unprecedented — and unproven — bid to bring the outbreak under control.
In Hong Kong, hospital workers demanding a shutdown of the territory’s border with mainland China were on strike for a fourth day. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced a 14-day quarantine of all travelers entering the city, but the government has refused to seal the border entirely.
Quarantined cruises
Two docked cruise ships with thousands of passengers and crew members remained under 14-day quarantines in Hong Kong and Japan.
Ten passengers confirmed to have the virus were escorted off the Diamond Princess at the port of Yokohama near Tokyo, after 10 others were taken off the previous day.
— The flulike virus that exploded from China has researchers worldwide once again scrambling to find a vaccine against a surprise health threat, with no guarantee one will arrive in time.
Just days after Chinese scientists shared the genetic map of the coronavirus, researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health had engineered a possible key ingredient for a vaccine they hope to begin testing by April.
Scientists from Australia to France, along with a list of biotech and vaccine companies, jumped in the race, pursuing types of inoculations.
And Texas researchers froze an experimental vaccine developed too late to fight an earlier coronavirus — SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome — but are pushing U.S. and Chinese authorities to give it a try this time around. Because the new virus is a close cousin of SARS, it just might protect, said Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.
All that work is coming at lightning speed compared to past outbreaks. Yet many experts agree it still may take a year — if every step along the way goes well — for any vaccine to be ready for widespread use. That’s if it’s even needed by then.
For now, health officials are isolating the sick to fight spread of the virus, which causes fever, cough and in severe cases pneumonia. With no specific treatment, some doctors also are experimenting with antiviral medicines developed for other conditions.
“Ours is already manufactured and could take off pretty quickly,” said Hotez, who created the earlier SARS vaccine with Texas Children’s colleague Maria Elena Bottazzi.
NIH specialists say rather than chasing outbreaks, it’s time to pursue prototype vaccine designs that could work for entire virus families, ready to be pulled off the shelf at the first sign of a new disease.
“We have the technology now. It’s feasible from an engineering and biological standpoint,” said Dr. Barney Graham, deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center. Without that step, “we’re going to be at risk for new pandemics.”
Traditionally, making vaccines required first growing lots of virus in a lab. The NIH team is pursuing a newer and far faster method: Simply use a piece of the virus’ genetic code, called messenger RNA or mRNA, that instructs cells to make a particular protein.
“We think of RNA as the software of life,” said Dr. Tal Zaks, chief medical officer of Moderna Inc., which is developing mRNA vaccines for other diseases and working with NIH on the new coronavirus.
Inject the right piece and “you’ve taught the body to make its own medicine,” he explained.