Some Patients With Wuhan Coronavirus Only Show Mild Symptoms. Here ’s Why That’s a Problem

As researchers fight to stop the spread of a novel coronavirus that originated in a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, they are facing a counter-intuitive problem: the symptoms can sometimes be so mild in patients that the virus is very difficult to detect. The Wuhan coronavirus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, has killed at least 106 people in mainland China, out of the 4,400-plus documented cases. According to records released by Chinese health authorities, most fatalities were older or had additional health problems. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which is related to 2019-nCoV and killed nearly 800 people, about 1 in 10 of those infected, as it spread across the world in 2002 and 2003. At this early stage, 2019-nCoV’s fatality rate is much smaller, though it’s early to tell for certain. The coronavirus initially came to authorities’ attention in December after patients began exhibiting symptoms of viral pneumonia, including fever, cough and shortness of breath. But researchers, including those at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have noted that some of those with the Wuhan coronavirus have shown “little to no symptoms.” A study published in the medical journal the Lancet on Jan. 24 reported that a 10-year-old who was infected with the virus had no symptoms at all. “We have seen patients, especially children, who have pneumonia, but have no symptoms, no fever or cough, which means that it’s ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized China Infectious Disease onetime overnight Source Type: news