New type virus Ensure medical care in case of unknown route

New virus: Ensure medical care for patients with unknown route of infection at 21:46 on February 13

If the path of the new coronavirus cannot be traced, there may already be a certain number of infected people in Japan. Experts have pointed out that it is more important to ensure that medical care for severely ill patients is more secure than border measures when the path of infection cannot be traced to some patients.

In Japan, measures to prevent the spread of infection in Japan have been the main focus, such as quarantine and restriction of immigration from infected areas, as well as follow-up of those returning from Wuhan, China by charter aircraft.

Regarding cases of infections that cannot be traced, Watanabe's Tohoku University professor Hitoshi Oshitani, who has been conducting infectious disease control at the WHO, said, "There are already a large number of infected people in Japan, and the number of patients found will increase in the future. In the future, it is more important to develop a medical system that can intensively treat severely ill patients than to border measures.

Specifically, it was necessary to check the number of beds that could be intensively treated at medical institutions in each region and the number of respirators that would be required if a severely ill patient appeared.

On the other hand, this new coronavirus is said to have many people with mild symptoms, and if mildly ill people concentrate at medical institutions, the function of the hospital may be paralyzed and the treatment of severely ill patients may be affected. In principle, if the condition is mild, it is necessary to recuperate at home.

In addition, as the elderly and persons with a chronic illness are considered to be at increased risk of severe disease, measures to reduce the chance of infection include restricting visits to facilities for the elderly, and persons with a chronic illness entering and leaving the hospital. It is also important to take precautionary measures such as prescribing medicines for a long period of time at a time in order to reduce the risk.

In addition, many people are likely to be worried, so it is necessary to improve contact points for telephone consultations and provide the government with appropriate information on the disease.

`` It is important to clarify where the infection was at this stage, but there is a possibility that some other patients may not be able to be traced in Japan, so we will prepare a medical system immediately, '' You need to do that. "