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Coronavirus: Experts unsure whether current efforts enough to contain the mysterious outbreak successfully

The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility that the transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health measures, say experts
PUBLISHED JAN 30, 2020
(AP Photo)
(AP Photo)

China is trying to battle the Wuhan coronavirus that has sickened over 7,711 people and killed over 170. And the battle is not going to be an easy one, as the virus continues to remain mysterious.

This means experts are not sure what they are up against and whether current efforts are effective enough to contain the outbreak successfully.

In just one day, China reported 1,737 new infections. “It is very striking how quickly the numbers are going up,”  Trish Perl, chief of infectious diseases and geographic medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, who has fought other respiratory virus outbreaks, including SARS and MERS,  told Washington Post.

The Wuhan coronavirus has reached 19 places outside mainland China, with more than 100 confirmed cases and no deaths recorded until now. But six countries, including China, have confirmed human-to-human transmission of the infection. 

This trend has caused some panic.  “As the numbers are going up, do I think I’m concerned about the rapidity of it? Yes. Do I think it may be difficult to control? Yes. But in the context of a lot of unknowns,” Perl said.

Despite lockdown measures in China, experts are currently unsure what impact they will have. To make matters worse, more than 5 million Wuhan residents left the city before the lockdown, potentially carrying the virus with them.

Some scientists, who are studying the rate at which cases are rising in and emerging from China, fear the worst is yet to come. As time progresses, they suspect that countries might not succeed in containing the outbreak and that the flu might become more common as it spreads around the world.

“The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility that the transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health measures,” Dr Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS, told STAT.

If that is the case, she said, “We are living with a new human virus, and we are going to find out if it will spread around the globe.”

McGeer cautioned that because the true severity of the outbreak is not yet known, it is impossible to predict what the impact of that spread would be.

According to reports, over 1,370 patients are critical, and nearly 12,167 people are under observation (Chinatopix via AP)

According to Zhong Nanshan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a prominent expert in respiratory diseases, predicting when the epidemic will reach its peak will be challenging — but it may come in a week or 10 days. After that, the number of people infected by the novel coronavirus will not increase massively, he told Xinhua News Agency.

Nevertheless, some experts call for aggressive actions to develop a vaccine. "I’m not making a prediction that it’s going to happen," Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, told STAT. 

He added that mathematical modeling, the statements from Chinese authorities and the sharply rising infection numbers make a case for this possible outcome. "I think just based on those pieces of limited information, it’s important for us to begin some planning around the possibility that this won’t be contained."

Scientists are dealing with many unknows here.  For now,  however,  spotting and isolating infectious people, could work, until we have a vaccine. But this approach may not work if people spread the infection even before the symptoms appear.

Recently, Chinese authorities claimed the virus spreads before infected people develop symptoms. There is little evidence to support that claim and David Fisman, from the University of Toronto in Canada is skeptical about it. But, he told NewScientist, “it’s a game-changer if true”.

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