(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) Research by CUHK indicates that young children with high viral load may become "invisible communicators"

  China News Service, Hong Kong, April 6 (Reporter Han Xingtong) The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) School of Medicine announced on the 6th that a survey found that children are prone to become "invisible spreaders" of the new crown virus. Many children have no symptoms but the virus Both the load and the proportion of active virus are high, which is extremely contagious.

  The research team of the Faculty of Medicine at CUHK compared the proportion of children diagnosed in Hong Kong, the Mainland, Italy, Spain and the United States, and found that the percentage in Hong Kong is relatively high.

Huang Xiujuan, deputy director of the Gut Microbiota Research Center of the Faculty of Medicine, CUHK, pointed out that research data showed that more than 40% of confirmed infants in Hong Kong 3 years old or younger are asymptomatic.

  Since the end of March last year, the School of Medicine of CUHK has provided free stool testing services for the new coronavirus.

As of March 25 this year, the CUHK New Coronavirus Testing Center has successfully identified 22 confirmed cases among more than 17,500 stool samples, with a positive rate of 0.13%.

Among these confirmed cases, 20 are children under 6 years old, which is more than 90%; and "invisible cases" without symptoms also account for more than 70%.

  Chen Jixiang, head of the Department of Microbiology of the School of Medicine of the Chinese University of China, who is in charge of testing, pointed out that through fecal testing, it was found that most of the young children are "invisible communicators."

They have no symptoms, but the viral load is high, and the proportion of active viruses is as high as 90%, which is extremely contagious.

In addition, they continue to carry the active virus for a long time, up to 36 days.

These factors all show that infected young children are more likely to spread the virus in the community, which is a group worthy of attention in epidemic prevention measures.

  Therefore, the research team recommends that the SAR government pay more attention to the role of this age group in community communication.

As the sampling methods of deep throat saliva and nasopharyngeal/throat swabs are more difficult to use for young children, non-invasive and highly accurate stool testing is particularly suitable for this age group. The SAR government should use more mandatory community testing and daily routine testing. Detection of samples of young children, as well as early detection and interruption of the invisible transmission chain in the community.

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