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Four additional cases of people infected with the new type of coronavirus were identified on Saturday, bringing the total number to at least 45 infected patients in Wuhan, central China, where all the Chinese cases have been reported since last month. . But some doubt this version of the authorities.
With our correspondent in Shanghai, Simon Leplâtre
How many people have infected with the new coronavirus in central China? Forty-five, as Chinese health officials say, or 1,723 as a study by scientists at Imperial College London?
inconsistencies
More and more Chinese people doubt official information after the death of a second infected person this week. On social networks, some people ask: how is it that the virus reached Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand, but not a single other province of China?
This is about the same question that scientists at London Imperial College asked themselves: they analyzed traffic data from Wuhan airport, the city in central China where the virus first appeared. conclude that if three people were infected abroad, probably more than 1,700 people could be infected in China. It is obviously an order of magnitude.
Concern about the New Year
Should we worry about that? Until now this virus, which belongs to the family of coronaviruses, had never been observed. Its origin seems to be in the fish market of Wuhan, now closed, where animals have contaminated humans. According to Professor Fontanet, of the Pasteur Institute, this virus is genetically very close to that which had caused the SARS epidemic in 2003, causing more than 700 deaths out of 8000 cases of acute respiratory disease.
There remain two subjects of concern: first, a possible mutation of the virus, as with SARS. Then next week is the Lunar New Year when Chinese people return to their families all over China. What spread the virus on a larger scale.
According to Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott of the University of Sydney, the rapid reaction of China, which shared the genetic sequence of the coronavirus with researchers from the rest of the world, has already made it possible to carry out a specific test to identify cases .
Sanitary measures at airports
Thermal sensors on the borders of Hong Kong and in the airports of Singapore and Jakarta, reinforced signage in those of Japan. Asian countries are on the alert, and they are not alone.
On the other side of the Pacific, the airports of Los Angeles, San Francisco and JFK in New York are also increasing their sanitary measures. Medical teams will submit passengers on all flights from Wuhan to questionnaires and exams.
In a week hundreds of millions of Chinese will take the train or plane to the interior of China, the United States and South East Asia. The problem is that Wuhan, the cradle of this new form of pneumonia, is an important rail and air hub.
The priority for health authorities is to avoid reproducing the errors of 2002-2003. Another strain of pneumonia, SARS, had spread from southern China to more than 20 countries, killing nearly 800 people.