China Confirms Outbreak Of SARS-like Virus As Thousands Travel For New Year

The SAR-virus scare has begun to intensify across China after 14 health professionals contracted the respiratory virus whilst treating patients. At present, a total of 222 people in Asia have now tested positive for the virus, which is a steep rise from the meager figure (48) on January 17. The figure includes four patients from other countries and 20 across different parts of China.

Despite further examination being underway, authorities believe that the virus was spread through the animal source at a Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in Wuhan City. Termed as a 'zoonotic disease', it has been inferred that the harmful germs had spread from animals in the market, where most of the first patients of the condition were traced to. The market has been shut from January 1. Speculations are rife that the pneumonia-causing virus is contagious and commonly spread through coughing, sneezing and other bodily fluids.

Unfortunately, the news of the virus spread comes just in time before the Lunar New Year, when the Chinese usually vacation abroad.

While the identities of the healthcare professionals who’ve contracted the virus haven’t been divulged as yet, Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia, asserts that a virus with the capacity to spreading between people is dangerous by nature. “If it’s going to cause problems around the world, it has got to spread from person to person,” said Hunter. “If it’s from an animal, it won’t be as important,” he added.

As far as recent researches are concerned, the virus has been identified as a new type of coronavirus. These viruses are from a large family of pathogens that cause respiratory infections like the common cold. Coronaviruses can be deadly as well, as it claimed the lives of several people who contracted it in the early 2000s.

On January 14, the World Health Organization reported that there was 'limited' human-to-human transmission of the virus.

As per a recent report; Professor Zhong Nanshan, a renowned scientist at a press conference in China’s National Health Commission, suggested that human-to-human transmission is 'affirmative'. Furthermore, two patients in southern China contracted the virus from infected family members, but what needs to be noted is that they had not visited Wuhan.