China Struggles to Deal With New Pneumonia-Like Illness
Data suggests illnesses related to a “novel microbe.”
Chinese public health officials are struggling to identify a mysterious strain of pneumonia that has infected dozens of people and put the rest of Asia on alert for outbreaks.
The authorities in Wuhan, central China, said 44 people had been admitted to hospital with the unidentified virus, up from the 27 reported on Tuesday. Eleven of them were in a serious condition, while a further 121 people who had been in close contact with the infected patients had been placed under medical observation. No deaths have been reported.
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said that the origin of the viral pneumonia outbreak remained unknown. It said investigations had so far ruled out common flu, avian flu, adenovirus infection and other common respiratory diseases. Further laboratory tests and investigations were under way.
The commission added that there was no proof of human-to-human transmission, nor had any medical staff contracted the illness.
Symptoms of the new disease include high fever, difficulty breathing, and lung lesions. Currently, there are 59 known cases of this pneumonia-like illness. And while Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has been ruled out as a cause, public health officials are concerned about another potential pandemic.
The outbreak came to light in late December and prompted fears in China of a possible resurgence of SARS, an acute viral respiratory illness first reported in the country in 2002 that caused a pandemic that ripped through Asia.
SARS spread to 37 countries worldwide, infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 from November 2002 to July 2003. The illness is brought on by a coronavirus, and symptoms include fever, cough, severe headache, dizziness and other flu-like complaints.
Amid growing disquiet, Wuhan authorities said on Sunday they had excluded the possibility of SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and bird flu.
Unfortunately, the illness broke out in conjunction with one of China’s biggest travel holidays.
The illness appeared just weeks before the Spring Festival, the country’s biggest holiday, when tens of millions of people travel. The authorities urged the public to be on alert for pneumonia-like symptoms like fever, body aches and breathing difficulties.
Workers wearing hazmat suits disinfected and shut down the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, which also sold poultry, pheasants and wild animal meats, after the city health department said it traced many of the cases to it. Viruses that caused SARS and the H7N9 strain of bird flu in humans were first detected in markets that sold animals and experts have said contact with infected animals was the likeliest source of transmission.
As a result of these reports, Hong Kong authorities activated a newly created “serious response” level to address the increased public health concerns.
The serious response level indicates a moderate impact on Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million people. It is the second highest in a three-tier system that is part of a new government plan launched Saturday to respond to infectious diseases of unknown cause.
The city’s health department added an additional thermal imaging system at Hong Kong’s airport on Friday to check the body temperature of arriving passengers. More staff have been assigned for temperature checks at the West Kowloon high-speed rail station that connects Hong Kong to the mainland.
Authorities in Taiwan have issued recommendations for travelers to the impacted region.
The upcoming holiday has prompted concerns in Taiwan, where vice premier Chen Chi-mai has urged the island’s health and welfare ministry to strengthen quarantine controls at airports and “plan properly.”
On Monday, Taiwan’s center for disease control also advised residents planning to travel to or near Wuhan to wear masks and avoid contact with wild animals.
Research so far suggests seafood or game animals are the sources of the infecting pathogen.
“The epidemiological association of these unexplained pneumonia cases with the wet market selling not just seafood, but also some game-food animals strongly suggests that this is a novel microbe jumping from animal to human,” says Yuen Kwok Yung, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong.
Given China’s advances in epidemiology, infection control, and laboratory diagnostic capabilities since the SARS outbreak in Asia in 2003, Yuen says “It is highly unlikely that this outbreak will lead to a major [SARS-like] epidemic, though we cannot be complacent!”
Hopefully, Yuen’s optimistic projection is accurate. It would be nice not to have to cover significant epidemics in 2020.
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Comments
Forgive me, but 44 cases is not pandemic scare time.
If cases keep popping up in a wider geographic distribution, there’s more cause for concern.
Is there any evidence of it being particularly contagious or resistant to treatment?
Sure, find the additional data, keep an eye on potential cases, but it’s well shy of epidemic or pandemic status at this stage.
Seconded. Lets see what it turns out to be.
Just as long as the devastating Swine virus has not jumped species. That would be worst case.
Did something change in the article? I could have sworn something in there was talking about potential pandemic.
Could be my memory, but…
“”And while Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has been ruled out as a cause, public health officials are concerned about another potential pandemic.””
You mean this?
Ah, that was it.
Right now, there’s an epidemic of a flu-like respiratory illness on the coasts of the US, destination for zillions of Chinese tourists.
When you have a population of 1.6 billion (more than the amount of money stolen by the obama/jarrett/clinton/biden/pelosi cabal) crammed together, “new” strains of highly contagious diseases involving “novel microbes” is as serious as obama shipping 130 tons of uranium to iran during the last days in the White House:
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/in-final-days-in-office-obama-rushed-to-let-iran-import-130-tons-of-uranium-enough-to-make-10-nukes/
The military people who facilitated this transfer are akin to German soldiers after WW2 who claimed they were “just following orders”.
Maybe they are afraid of this because it was engineered and they messed up.
Let me guess – 24 hours after death, the Corpses arise and start wandering the countryside, looking for Brainzzzz to eat.
They do that right after voting multiple times for Democrats in several states.
Didn’t World War Z start in China?
SARS was carried by the Palm Civet Cat. Not exactly a game animal; they’re farmed because the Chinese eat the meat for medicinal purposes. And when the Chinese raise these animals for the market it is under overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.
The article mentions they traced the pathogen back to fish and game meat markets. I’d bet the source is another animal farmed for use as traditional medicine.
Hell, it could even be the Palm Civet again.
Arminius, I’m a disciple of Gomarus myself.
I have eaten palm civet, and suffered no ill effects (my theological positions were reached long before I ever saw Guangdong Province). It is actually quite tasty when handled by a skilled chef. Just think how rural people in the American South eat Opossum and Raccoon.
As far as I know, nobody ever got SARS from eating raccoons or opossums.
interesting how a country that doesn’t mind little things like germ warfare has a superbug to deal with.
China is a common source for new viruses because many Chinese peasants share their living spaces with pigs and ducks. Several types of viruses (eg influenza) can easily infect humans, pigs, and fowl. These zoonotic viruses mutate quickly, and they do so while they are in the pig and duck reservoirs. Then when they jump back to humans, they have new genes that the immune system does not yet recognize.
@JusticeDelivered and 2smartforlibs: The possibilities you mention are quite plausible. China has been very nervous about all the things that were attempted by its attackers, and the Japanese did indeed work on grm warfare during WWII. Uner my actual name, I served as a consular officer in China, and have done freelance translation as well.