The concern continues to grow a few days before the Chinese New Year and its big crossovers. China announced on Monday (January 20th) a third death and nearly 140 new cases of the mysterious virus, analogous to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).
The assessment thus increased to 201 diagnosed cases, including 170 patients still hospitalized. Nine of them are in critical condition, according to Wuhan City health officials.
In this large city in central China where the virus appeared, 136 new cases were identified during the weekend. In addition, there are two new cases in Beijing, for the first time since the discovery of the virus, and one in the southern province of Guangdong.
The two cases in the capital involve people who have been to Wuhan and who, in stable condition, are being treated for pneumonia, according to Daxing district authorities (south of Beijing). In Guangdong, the patient, a 66-year-old man, had also visited relatives in Wuhan, according to regional health officials.
Fear of an epidemic similar to that experienced in 2002 and 2003
SARS killed 650 people in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002 and 2003. The epidemic comes in the run up to the Chinese New Year festivities, during which hundreds of millions of people take the opportunity to travel, both at home and abroad.
Thailand has tightened airport controls as it approaches this period when the country expects more than 1,300 travelers a day from Wuhan. “People should not panic because there is no spread of the disease in Thailand”, the authorities assured Friday. Outside China, two cases have been reported in Thailand and one in Japan. These three patients had traveled to Wuhan.
Inside China, the number of people affected by this strange virus could be much higher than that announced by the health authorities, according to scientists at a research center at Imperial College London, which advises institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO).
They claim, in a study published Friday January 17, that 1,723 people may in fact have been infected, according to a report taking into account all the information then available on 12 January.
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