Not one but four tests later, Chinese man finally confirmed with coronavirus
- Tianjin railway worker identified as infected after multiple visits to hospital and twice becoming sick, health authorities say
- Patient in Germany contracts illness from contact with colleague showing no symptoms
The patient, a 55-year-old railway worker living Tianjin, a megacity next to the capital of Beijing, was identified as a potential case in mid-January because he had been in “close contact” with a number of infected patients in the city, according to the local health commission.
On January 19, the man developed a fever and, a week later, he went to hospital and was tested twice for the virus. The results were negative and he was quarantined at home.
He had fever again on January 27, but the third test the next day again indicated that he was not infected.
It was only until January 30, when he was tested again that he was confirmed as infected, making him Tianjin’s 28th case.
The health commission said that up to three tests had been required to confirm an infection in other patients.
Specialists said that although symptoms were worse in Sars patients 17 years ago, the new coronavirus, called 2019-nCoV, appeared to be more difficult to detect and therefore control.
In the German case, the patient was a 33-year-old otherwise healthy German businessman who was infected during a meeting in the country with a visiting colleague from Shanghai.
The colleague had parents from the central Chinese city Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, and at the time of the meeting in Germany, appeared well and had no signs of an infection.
But during a flight back to China, the colleague became ill, testing positive for the new coronavirus on January 26.
Meanwhile, the German man developed a sore throat, chills and muscle ache on January 24 and soon had a fever, but felt better and went to work on January 27.
He was only discovered as infected after his Shanghai colleague reported sick and authorities started contact tracing. Among the German man’s other colleagues, three later tested positive but only one had met the Shanghai woman.
“This case of 2019-nCoV infection was diagnosed in Germany and transmitted outside of Asia. However, it is notable that the infection appears to have been transmitted during the incubation period of the index patient [the woman from Shanghai], in whom the illness was brief and non-specific,” the authors said in the paper, published on January 30.
“The fact that asymptomatic persons are potential sources of 2019-nCoV infection may warrant a reassessment of transmission dynamics of the current outbreak.”
