The number of deaths from China’s new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 722 on Saturday, surpassing the toll from the SARS outbreak on the mainland and Hong Kong almost two decades ago, report agencies.
Another 86 people died from the virus, according to the national health commission, with all but five in hard-hit Hubei province, where the disease emerged in December. In its daily update, the commission also confirmed another 3,399 new cases. There are now more than 34,500 confirmed infections across the country.
Forty health care workers were infected with the novel coronavirus by patients at a single Wuhan hospital in January, a new study has found, underscoring the risks to those at the frontlines of the growing epidemic. One patient who was admitted to the surgical department was presumed to have infected 10 health care workers, according to the paper that was authored by doctors at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday.
Seventeen patients who were hospitalised for other reasons also became infected by the coronavirus. A total of 138 patients got the virus in a period spanning January 1 to January 28, with hospital-associated transmission accounting for 41 per cent of all cases. The study comes just hours after a Chinese doctor who was punished for raising the alarm about the coronavirus died from the pathogen — sparking an outpouring of grief and anger over a worsening crisis.
Li Wenliang, 34, sent out a message about the new coronavirus to colleagues on December 30 in Wuhan but was later among a group of people summoned by police for ‘rumour-mongering.’ He later contracted the disease while treating a patient. Of the 40 infected health care workers in the JAMA study, 31 worked on general wards, seven in the emergency department, and two in the ICU.
The example of the patient presumed to have infected 10 health workers highlighted the high level of danger within hospitals during the first phase of the epidemic, even though overall it is currently estimated that each patient infects on average 2.2 others. ‘If true, then this confirms that some patients are likely to be far more infectious than others, and this poses further difficulties in managing their cases,’ said Michael Head, a global health expert at the University of Southampton.
Medical staff at the epicentre of the virus are overstretched and lack sufficient protective gear, the deputy governor of Hubei province admitted Thursday. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a disease in the same family as the new coronavirus, left nearly 650 people dead in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
More than 120 others died around the world. China has struggled to contain the current virus despite having placed some 56 million people under effective lockdown in Hubei and its provincial capital, Wuhan. Other cities far from the epicentre have also taken measures to keep people indoors, limiting the number of individuals who can leave their home.
The virus has spread to two dozen countries, prompting several governments to ban arrivals from China and urge their citizens to avoid travelling to the country. Some have recommended their citizens leave China. Major airlines have suspended flights to and from China. Meanwhile, three more people on a cruise ship off Japan have tested positive for the new coronavirus, bringing the number aboard to 64, the government said Saturday, with passengers facing a two-week quarantine.
The latest confirmation came a day after an additional 41 passengers were found to have contracted the virus. Japanese authorities have so far tested about 280 people on board the Diamond Princess, which was quarantined after a former passenger, who disembarked in Hong Kong last month, was diagnosed with the virus.
Test results from six more people were released on Saturday, with three of them confirmed infected, the health ministry said without giving further details such as their nationalities. The three people have already been sent to hospital, the ministry said in a statement. There were more than 3,700 passengers and crew on the ship when it arrived off Japan’s coast on Monday evening. It docked in Yokohama on Thursday to resupply for a quarantine that could last until February 19.
One of those found infected is in serious condition. Many on board are elderly and at greater risk of developing complications from the virus. Testing was initially carried out on those who displayed symptoms or had come into close contact with the former passenger diagnosed.
Japan has already reported at least 25 cases of coronavirus aside from the infections on board the ship, and evacuated hundreds of citizens from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pathogen emerged, including on a fourth flight Friday. Passengers on the ship have been asked to stay inside their cabins to prevent new infections and have expressed confusion and frustration.
The World Health Organisation called on Tokyo to provide sufficient support, including mental care, for the passengers and patients. ‘There’s a lot to do to support those patients. Not just from the point of view of their physical health but from a mental health perspective,’ Michael Ryan, head of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, told reporters in Geneva on Friday. ‘It’s quite scary, very, very scary to be in that situation,’ he said. ‘It’s a very stressful situation for those individuals.’ But he also called for calm, saying ‘Let’s be careful here not to overreact. This is a very close community living in very close quarters.’