New Chinese virus 'will have infected hundreds'

Authored by bbc.co.uk and submitted by accessirl
image for New Chinese virus 'will have infected hundreds'

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption There were six coronaviruses known to infect people before the latest discovery

The number of people already infected by the mystery virus emerging in China is far greater than official figures suggest, scientists have told the BBC.

There have been 45 laboratory-confirmed cases of the new virus, but UK experts estimate the figure is closer to 1,700.

Two people are known to have died from the virus, which appeared in Wuhan city in December.

"I am substantially more concerned than I was a week ago," disease outbreak scientist, Prof Neil Ferguson, said.

The work was conducted by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, which advises bodies including the UK government and the World Health Organization.

Singapore and Hong Kong have been screening air passengers from Wuhan and US authorities announced similar measures starting on Friday at three major airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

The crucial clue to the scale of the problem lies in the cases being detected in other countries.

While the outbreak is centred on Wuhan, there have been two cases in Thailand and one in Japan.

"That caused me to worry," said Prof Ferguson.

He added: "For Wuhan to have exported three cases to other countries would imply there would have to be many more cases than have been reported."

It is impossible to get the precise number, but outbreak modelling, which is based on the virus, the local population and flight data, can give an idea.

Wuhan International Airport serves a population of 19 million people, but only 3,400 a day travel internationally.

The detailed calculations, which have been posted online ahead of publication in a scientific journal, came up with a figure of 1,700 cases.

Prof Ferguson said it is "too early to be alarmist" but he was "substantially more concerned" than a week ago.

Chinese officials say there have been no cases of the virus spreading from one person to another.

Instead they say the virus has crossed the species barrier and come from infected animals at a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan.

Prof Ferguson argues: "People should be considering the possibility of substantial human-to-human transmission more seriously than they have so far.

"It would be unlikely in my mind, given what we know about coronaviruses, to have animal exposure be the principal cause of such a number of human infections."

Understanding how a novel virus is spreading is a crucial part of assessing its threat.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The outbreak occurred in the city of Wuhan, south of Beijing

Viral samples have been taken from patients and analysed in the laboratory.

And officials in China and the World Health Organization have concluded the infection is a coronavirus.

Coronaviruses are a broad family of viruses, but only six (the new one would make it seven) are known to infect people.

At the mild end they cause the common cold, but severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) is a coronavirus that killed 774 of the 8,098 people infected in an outbreak that started in China in 2002.

Analysis of the genetic code of the new virus shows it is more closely related to Sars than any other human coronavirus.

The virus has caused pneumonia in some patients and been fatal in two of them.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome medical research charity, said: "There is more to come from this epidemic.

"Uncertainty and gaps remain, but it's clear that there is some level of person-to-person transmission.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Coronavirus feared to have infected more than initially thought according to scientists

"We are starting to hear of more cases in China and other countries and it is likely, as this modelling shows, that there will be many more cases, in a number of countries."

Prof Jonathan Ball, from the University of Nottingham, said: "What's really important is until there has been widespread laboratory testing it is very difficult to put a real number on the cases out there.

"But this is a figure we should take seriously until we know otherwise, 41 animal-to-human 'spillovers' is stretching it a bit and there probably is more underlying infection than has been detected so far."

Amy_Ponder on January 17th, 2020 at 23:44 UTC »

Out of 41 confirmed cases, 2 people have died. My question is, were the two people who died elderly, or babies, or already sickly? Or were they healthy adults? If it was the former, it might just be statistical noise, but if the latter... a 1 in 20 fatality rate among healthy adults is scary. Especially since it seems this thing spreads quickly.

EDIT: Since this comment is blowing up, I want to add I am not an epidemiologist so I could be completely off-base here. And on that note, don't panic based on speculation before we have all the facts. We'll know more about the disease soon enough. Be safe everyone!

45sMassiveProlapse on January 17th, 2020 at 23:17 UTC »

“We have absolute confidence that this is not a serious threat and our officials and systems can contain this new virus...that we know so very little about and up to recently were unaware even of its existence.”

The-Last-American on January 17th, 2020 at 22:25 UTC »

Time to limit travel from China.

If the government insists on lying about something which could cause an epidemic, then the international community should do their due diligence.