For just over a month now, we have been hearing in all the media about the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), an outbreak of which was identified in the Chinese province of Wuhan. Together with the increasing international publicity, this virus is increasing concern among the population of many countries, as it has already spread throughout the world. The medical community is alarmed by the daily changing epidemiological picture and the new possibilities of the virus itself, in particular, we are talking about the mode of transmission. So, experts suggest that the virus can be transmitted even during the incubation period.
Coronavirus outside of China
According to information provided by the World Health Organization, the 2019-nCoV virus has already gone beyond the borders of the Chinese state and has spread across 23 countries, where 151 cases of coronavirus infection have been registered.
According to an article published in The New England Journal of medicine, medical communities assume that coronavirus infection can be transmitted from person to person even at the moment when the patient did not show any symptoms. This period in medicine is called latent. It is currently known that the incubation period, which begins from the moment the virus enters the body and ends with the manifestation of the first symptoms, in a coronavirus infection can reach from 1 to 14 days.
Several chronologically arranged cases of infection give scientists every right to assume that the latency period for a viral infection is much shorter than the incubation period, which may indicate the existence of asymptomatic forms of the disease. So, a similar case happened in Germany, where one of the German businessmen turned to doctors with symptoms of sore throat, headache and chills. The next day he developed a cough and the temperature rose to 39 degrees Celsius, but the next day he was discharged from the hospital and he was able to go to work. As it turned out later, the businessman held meetings with a business partner from Shanghai, who arrived in Germany without any symptoms of coronavirus infection, but upon returning to China he tested positive for 2019-nCov.
For safety reasons, the man was sent for additional tests in Munich, the results of which revealed a positive reaction to coronavirus infection. German specialists also needed to conduct an additional examination of people who could come into contact with a sick man. It turned out that these people were employees of his company, three of whom were diagnosed with the disease using a special PCR test. It is important to note that, so far, none of them have shown serious clinical symptoms of the disease.
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Thus, scientists suggest that the infection could have been transmitted during the incubation period from a person in whom the disease was mild and non-specific. This conclusion can significantly affect the course of the spread of the virus, since people with asymptomatic forms of the disease are able to carry the coronavirus infection.
Previously emerging diseases, such as acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which were caused by other representatives of coronaviruses, did not have the ability to transmit before the first symptoms appeared, but now the new type of microorganisms was able to significantly differ from its predecessors …
Author: Daria Eletskaya