Wuhan virus kills fourth patient, infects hospital staff amid fear of ‘super-spreader’
- Priority now to stop emergence of ‘super-spreader’, with one carrier already infecting more than a dozen medical staff, specialist says
- Authorities in Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, report a fourth death and 15 infections among hospital staff
Health authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan said another person had died from the recently identified coronavirus infection, bringing the total to four.
It added that 15 medical staff in Wuhan had contracted the virus, confirming that it is spreading by human transmission and raising concerns that people at the most virulent stage of infection – so-called super-spreaders – could infect many others.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it would call an emergency meeting on Wednesday to decide whether the outbreak should be declared an international public health emergency.
The new strain of coronavirus was identified this month after a mystery pneumonia started striking people in Wuhan mid-December. It is so far known to have spread to Thailand, South Korea and Japan in addition to the cases in China, in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern province of Guangdong.
The speed of the outbreak has raised fears of another epidemic on the scale of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) coronavirus, which killed more than 700 people around the world in 2002-03 after originating in China.
One of China’s top Sars experts confirmed on Monday evening that the virus could be transmitted between humans, and that it was likely to have originated from wild animals.
The total number of infections reported in Wuhan – where a seafood and animal meat market is thought to have been the centre of the outbreak – had reached 198 by Tuesday. The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 218, with five in Beijing, 14 in Guangdong, and one in Shanghai.
More suspected cases have been reported in Shanghai and Qingdao on the coast, Chengdu and Yunnan province in the southwest, and Guangxi in the country’s south.