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In line with the International Health Regulations, all countries’ IHR National Focal Points were requested to immediately report any new confirmed case of #COVID19 within 48hours, & provide information related to clinical, epidemiological & travel history.
Iran confirms 13 more coronavirus cases, two deaths
Condition of 8 infected Indians on board cruise ship improving
China's doctors are stretched beyond capacityRising demand for health care has far outpaced the increase in the supply of doctors. Between 2005 and 2018, the number of fully licensed doctors nearly doubled, but the number of hospital admissions nearly quadrupled, according to Chinese government data.
Virus hot spots emerge in Chinese prisons
More than 400 cases of the new coronavirus have been detected in prisons across China, fuelling concerns about new clusters of the epidemic.
Three new cases in Iran after two deaths
Iran has confirmed three new coronavirus cases following the deaths of two elderly men, the health ministry told AFP on Thursday, as Iraq banned travel to and from its neighbour. Health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said two of the new cases were in Qom and the other was in Arak, south of the holy city.
Death toll in China's coronavirus jumps to 2,236; confirmed cases cross 75,400The number of deaths is higher than the previous day when 114 people died of the disease, but the country reported the lowest number of new infection cases in nearly a month, fuelling hopes that Beijing's epidemic control efforts were working. By the end of Thursday, a total of 2,236 people had died of the disease and 75,465 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported from 31 provincial-level regions and in China, the National Health Commission (NHC) said in its daily report on Friday.
As of Feb. 18, there are 29 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in the United States. These include 14 people who were stuck on a cruise ship off the coast of Japan and arrived back in the U.S. on Feb. 16 and Feb. 17. Most of the infected passengers were taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The rest of the evacuated passengers are under quarantine at military bases in California and Texas.
Other previously-identified cases of coronavirus in the U.S. include 8 cases in California, 2 cases in Illinois, and one case each in Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Texas.
Some person-to-person spread of SARS-CoV-2 has been seen in the U.S. among close contacts of people returning from Wuhan, but the virus is not currently spreading in the community here, according to the CDC.
Newly emerged viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are always of public health concern, according to the CDC. It's unclear how the situation with this virus in the U.S. will unfold, the agency says. Some people, such as health care workers, are at increased risk for exposure to SARS-CoV-2. But for the general American public, the immediate health risk from the virus is low at this time, the CDC says.
Coronavirus quarantine in Wuhan
Wuhan plans to round up those suspected of having the virus to be placed in isolation, in some kind of mass quarantine camps, The New York Times reported. China's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said that city officials should go door to door to check residents' temperatures and to interview those in contact with infected individuals, the Times reported.
"Set up a 24-hour duty system. During these wartime conditions, there must be no deserters, or they will be nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever," Sun said, according to the Times.
The Times is reporting a shortage of medical supplies, coronavirus-testing kits and hospital beds due to the lockdown in the city and surrounding area, leading to people walking on foot from hospital to hospital, only to be turned away.
Who will be quarantined in the US?
Officials announced on Friday (Jan. 31) that the U.S. will beenforcing quarantines on citizens who have traveled to the Hubei Province (where the outbreak originated) in the last 14 days. If U.S. citizens have been to China in the last 14 days, they will be rerouted to one of eleven airports (see above) across the country to be screened for the new coronavirus,according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
If passengers who have traveled to China are showing symptoms of the virus (which include a cough, trouble breathing or fever) they will be subject to mandatory quarantines. If passengers who have traveled to China (outside of the Hubei province) show no symptoms after being screened at one of the 11 airports, they will be re-booked to their destinations within the U.S. and asked to self-quarantine at home, according to the DHS.
Other travelers who haven't been to China but are found to be on the same flight of passengers that have been to China might also be rerouted to one of the 11 airports, according to the DHS. What's more, in general "foreign nationals" who have traveled to China in the past 14 days won't be allowed in the U.S.
Hundreds of U.S. citizens who were evacuated from Wuhan are currently under mandatory quarantine at several U.S. military bases.
Does the coronavirus have an official name?
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
On Feb. 11, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the official name of the new disease caused by the novel coronavirus: Corona Virus Disease, abbreviated as COVID-19. "Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing. It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus outbreaks," Ghebreyesus said.
WHO discourages naming new viruses after geographic locations, people, species or classes of animals or foods, according to the organization's Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases. Rather, WHO encourages use of descriptive terms of a disease, such as "respiratory disease" and "neurologic syndrome," as well as "severe" or "progressive." The organization also says that if a pathogen is known, it should be used as part of the disease's name.
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses is tasked with giving the virus an official name. On Feb. 11, the committee said the virus will be known as "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2," or SARS-CoV-2, due to its genetic similarity to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), according to Science Magazine.
More than 25 000 people across the globe have accessed real-time knowledge from WHO experts on how to detect, prevent, respond to and control the new coronavirus in the 10 days since the launch of open online training.
The learning team of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme worked with technical experts to quickly develop and publish the online course on 26 January – 4 days before the 2019-nCoV outbreak was declared a public health emergency of international concern.
Approximately 3000 new users have registered for the training every day since its launch, demonstrating the high level of interest in the virus among health professionals and the general public. In addition, more than 200 000 people have viewed the video to the course on YouTube.
The high engagement levels emerged as the international community launched a US$675 million response plan to fight the further spread of the new coronavirus and protect states with weaker health systems.
The free learning resource is available to anyone interested in novel coronavirus on WHO’s open learning platform for emergencies, OpenWHO.org. The platform was established 3 years ago with emergencies such as nCoV in mind, in which WHO would need to reach millions of people across the globe with real-time, accessible learning materials.
The online training – entitled “Emerging respiratory viruses, including nCoV: methods for detection, prevention, response and control” – is currently being produced in all official UN languages and Portuguese.
“Our job is to work with technical health experts to package knowledge using adult learning principles, quickly so that it is most useful to health workers and our staff,” said Heini Utunen, who manages OpenWHO for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE). “Our online platform – OpenWHO – is already accessed by users from every country on earth, providing more than 60 courses in 21 languages. Delivering pieces of training in the local language of responders is really important, especially in an emergency”.
WHE has been investing in training to strengthen preparedness and real-time response to health emergencies. The programme developed its first-ever learning strategy in 2018 and has a small dedicated Learning and Capacity Development Unit that allows WHE to develop trainings quickly and get the know-how to those who most need it at the front line.
For the latest information on the new coronavirus, visit the 2019-nCoV page.
On Feb. 12, the Hubei Province, where the outbreak began in Wuhan, officials have decided to consider a "clinical" diagnosis for the new coronavirus. That means these individuals who may have tested negative on the current diagnostic test (called a nucleic acid test) but show all of the coronavirus symptoms will be classified as confirmed cases. In that way, the Hubei Province Health Committee said, "patients can receive standardized treatment according to confirmed cases as early as possible to further improve the success rate of treatment."
With that new criteria, the province added 14,840 cases of coronavirus to the total in a day.
Now the question arises that will the coronavirus die by the HOT summer?
We don't know yet. Most respiratory viruses, such as flu viruses, are seasonal. We generally know when the peak of flu season will be and can expect the number of flu cases to drop down as we head toward spring and summer, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in a news conference on Feb. 12. But for the new virus, "I think it's premature to assume that," she said. If this new virus behaves similarly to flu viruses, we may see less infections as spring and summer roll around. "But this is a new disease, we haven't even been through six weeks of it much less a year," Messonnier said. Though hoping the numbers will go down as warm weather approaches, "the aggressive actions we're taking are because we don't think we can count on that."
The biggest study on COVID-19 cases till date provides new details on the severity of the illness, including its death rate and who is most susceptible.
The latest study researchers, from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, analyzed information from 44,672 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in China that were reported between Dec. 31, 2019, and Feb. 11, 2020. Among these cases, there were 1,023 deaths, resulting in an overall death rate of 2.3%.
That's much higher than the death rate of flu, which is around 0.1% in the U.S., according to The New York Times.
The new study found that the death rate from COVID-19 varied by the location. In Hubei Province, where the outbreak began, the death rate was 2.9%, compared with just 0.4% in other provinces — a 7-fold difference.
The study also showed that older adults have been hit hardest by COVID-19. Among those ages 80 and older, the death rate was 14.8%, compared with 8.0% for those ages 70 to 79; 3.6% for those ages 60 to 69; 1.3% for those ages 50 to 59; 0.4% for those ages 40 to 49, and 0.2% for those ages 10 to 39. No deaths have been reported among children from birth to age 9.
However, some experts have estimated that the number of COVID-19 cases could be much higher than what has been officially tracked and reported, according to the BBC. If that's the case, then the death rate could be lower than what's reported in this study.
Here are the few current updates 19th February 2020.
—American passengers who had been stuck on a cruise ship off the coast of Japan for nearly two weeks were evacuated on Sunday (Feb. 16) and have now arrived in the U.S. Fourteen of those passengers tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of U.S. cases to 29.
—Director of hospital in Wuhan has died from COVID-19. About 1,716 medical workers have COVID-19 (1,502 of those cases in Hubei Province), and six of these workers have died, the Times reports.
—The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting COVID-19 is up to 20 times more deadly than the flu, with a fatality rate of about 2.3% (in the U.S., seasonal flu's fatality rate is about 0.1%), the Times reports.
—A 61-year-old man in Taiwan with history of diabetes and hepatitis B has died from the coronavirus. He had no history of travel to Wuhan and may have been a taxi driver, the Times reported.
—About 73,336 confirmed coronavirus cases (primarily in mainland China), according to the Johns Hopkins virus dashboard.
—1,874 deaths linked to the virus. Deaths worldwide exceed those from SARS.
—15 confirmed U.S. cases. 13th confirmed U.S. case of the virus reported in person evacuated from Wuhan and accidentally released from a San Diego hospital.
—About 542 individuals on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan have tested positive for the coronavirus. There were 3,700 passengers and crew on the ship when it first docked off Japan.
—Hundreds of Americans onboard the Diamond Princess were evacuated back to the U.S. on Sunday, the Times reported. Australia, Canada and Hong Kong have said they'll evacuate their citizens as well.
—5 deaths have been linked to the virus outside of mainland China to date, including in Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Hong Kong and France.
—With the approval of several international organizations, the WHO has now replaced the temporary name for the disease with an official name: Corona Virus Disease, abbreviated as COVID-19.
—The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses has named the virus "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2," due to its genetic similarity to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Hi Friends, Corona virus SARS-CoV-2 (formerly 2019-nCoV) has been spreading in China, and has now reached multiple other countries. Here's what you need to know about the virus and the disease it causes, called COVID-19.
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.
Coronaviruses are zoonotic, which means they can be transmitted between animals and people. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans.
Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure, and even death.
Standard recommendations to prevent infection spread include regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs. Avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.
