Asian health officials fear Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is larger than China’s letting on
- As the number of people infected on the mainland leapt from 41 to more than 300 this week, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have all reported cases
- The surge has raised concerns over Beijing’s transparency and rekindled mistrust generated during the deadly 2003 Sars outbreak
Wuhan virus: Japan case puts Asian health authorities on high alert before Lunar New Year
International public health experts are concerned Chinese officials have not been fast enough to share information about the virus, instead requiring multiple bureaucratic steps before a case can be confirmed.
These procedures were put in place in response to the 2003 Sars outbreak, when China garnered international mistrust for initially covering up the full extent of the disease, which killed nearly 800 people and sickened more than 8,000 worldwide.
Asian countries are bracing for a daily influx of thousands of Chinese travellers during the Lunar New Year holiday, with markets in the region potentially in for a hit as consumers are seen as being more likely to stay home than spend during the scare.
Anant Bhan, professor of bioethics and global health at Yenepoya University in Mangalore, India, warned that all countries needed to be on “high alert”. “Infectious diseases do not respect borders when spreading,” he said.
Wuhan pneumonia: Asia battens down for Lunar New Year rush
Philippine authorities also said three Chinese travellers were being tested for the virus in the central province of Aklan, which receives direct flights from mainland China. Singapore said people with pneumonia and those who had travelled to anywhere in China within a 14-day period before the onset of symptoms would be isolated in hospital.
Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Outbreak Command Centre said a Taiwanese woman was hospitalised in isolation in Taipei after she had contracted the coronavirus while working in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, where it was first discovered.
A senior public health official in Korea told the South China Morning Post that while health authorities were in communication with their Chinese counterparts, “it is hard to say we are being provided with a sufficient amount of information”.
Just how contagious the virus is remains uncertain, though the WHO has confirmed it spreads between humans. One indicator is whether a virus is contracted by medical workers, and Chinese officials on Tuesday said 15 health care workers in Wuhan had fallen ill.
Leong Hoe Nam, infectious disease expert at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore, said: “We were hoping all this crucial information [about the health care workers] could be released a lot earlier. The only way to beat the epidemic is to be more transparent and faster than the spread of the virus.”
However, Leong and several other experts speaking to the Post said available information indicated the virus could be less deadly than Sars.
Experts suggest China’s multilevel approval process is partly responsible for a delay in confirming cases. Provincial health officials have said they needed confirmation from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing before they could announce a case.
Wuhan pneumonia: Thailand confirms first case of virus outside China
Making the molecular test for the virus available to all hospitals in China as well as to other countries would go a long way toward getting a handle on the true number of people infected, said Chlebicki from Mount Alvernia Hospital.
Officials in Singapore under the Home Team Science and Technology Agency are working to develop their own test for the virus.
Leong said health care workers should adopt a lower threshold for investigating any cases with respiratory symptoms, and that cases needed to be isolated earlier to reduce the risk of the virus adapting for easier transmission between humans.
Hong Kong experts on Tuesday estimated there could be as many as 1,700 cases in Wuhan, echoing earlier estimates by a specialist in Britain. The top international destinations for travellers from Wuhan are Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Tawee Chotpitayasunondh, senior medical consultant at Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health, said officials were anticipating a 50 per cent increase in direct flights from Wuhan during the Lunar New Year holiday – as many as 1,500 passengers from the city a day.
International transit hubs around the region have ramped up detection methods, with Singapore now screening all travellers from China. South Korean authorities said body temperature scanners had been set up for all flights entering from Wuhan, while American officials last week began screening travellers on direct flights from the city at airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
However, due to the nature of coronaviruses, airport temperature scans could be of limited effectiveness. Stanley Perlman, professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine, said patients might not be contagious until they felt ill – meaning infected patients could have crossed borders before they experienced symptoms.
Philippines and Australia investigating suspected cases after Wuhan visits
Though it is monitoring its first suspected case of the disease, Australia’s top health official earlier this week said the country would not be implementing widespread temperature screening at international airports. Officials there said they would target high-risk incoming flights from China with additional screenings.
In Hong Kong, health declaration forms are now being provided to travellers from Wuhan, and doctors are now required to report suspected cases among people who visited Hubei province in the past two weeks.
Chlebicki at Mount Alvernia Hospital said Hong Kong and Singapore were among the best-prepared places to handle the outbreak because of the protocols developed during the Sars, Mers and avian flu outbreaks.
“The spread of this virus will really come from poor containment in countries that are not as technologically well-prepared,” he said. “The virus will spread faster in countries that have underfunded medical systems. Unfortunately, the biggest test to this will be the big movement of people during the Chinese New Year holiday.”
Additional reporting by Park Chan-kyong, Vasudevan Sridharan and Jitsiree Thongnoi