courtesy: allvoices.com
Only a couple of weeks ago, alarm bells started going off in the UK with the death of a new victim infected by the new Coronavirus that has emerged in the past couple of years.
The Coronavirus, or more exactly the BetaCoronavirus, which is very similar to the Sars virus that caused hundreds of death in 2002, seems to have mutated and be capable of human to human transmission, although the degree of its virality is as of yet unknown.
What preoccupies scientists at CIDRAP, the institute for the researsh of infectious diseases, is that the new virus and its new cases more and more point to the fact that they might have been acquired from another human, instead of solely from an animal.
The strain has been quickly isolated and mapped, and it is believed to derive primarily from bats, although the Saudi research points to a possible infection from a goat herd. If that is true, it would make the virus less potent. The researchers would feel much better if all cases were in fact, traceable to an animal source.
A suspected case in the weekend, in Hong Kong, which was suspected to be from the new coronavirus turned out not to be a new case of infection. The man had traveled to the MIddle East recently, which has been seen as the new epicenter of the emerging disease, but turned out to be suffering from a bout of Influenza B.
So far seven of the 13 cases identified have been fatal, and all cases have had links to Saudi Arabia or neighboring regions.
MAP OF SARS INFECTIONS IN INITIAL OUTBREAK OF 2002
For this reason, the WHO , the world health watchdog, has quickly issued guidelines that ask all countries with suspected cases to test aggressively to identify if the virus is spreading and at what rate, especially in the cases that stem from individuals who have recently traveled to the Middle East region.
The 13 cases so far identified were thus distributed: 6 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from Jordan, 2 from Qatar, one of whom is still in the hospital for treatment in the UK, and 3 additional residents, all related to one another, in the UK, 1 of whom has died. There is also a suspicion that the 3 person family cluster might include a fourth, who was not tested until after she recovered, but who exhibit similar symptoms to her ill relatives. The health authorities believe that she might actually be the initial source of infection for the family. This cluster if of particular importance, since it shows the possibility of ease of transmission of the virus from person to person.
So far the virus can be treated effectively with interferon. However, its virulence as of yet has not been fully established. Most of the research in fact aims to establish whether the low number of cases is the total so far, indicating that it is not so virulent, or whether the cases represent the 'top of the pyramid', so to speak, with many more unidentified cases below it yet to emerge.
Another thing that has been pointed out by the scientists studying the virus, is that its re-emergence in this new form makes it a virus that is persistent in the environment, instead of one that disappears quickly with time.
Source: CIDRAP/ 2.21-26.13
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