First Patient in Thailand Diagnosed With the Mysterious SARS- like Virus

The World Health Organization has confirmed the first case of the new virus behind the China outbreak of pneumonia in Thailand. The UN Health Agency shared that an individual traveling from China was diagnosed with mild pneumonia and was hospitalized in the Bamrasnaradura Infectious Diseases Institute Thailand.

One of the WHO spokesmen Tarik Jasarevuc said that the laboratory tests subsequently confirmed the cause and it was coronavirus. The WHO said that there might be an emergency meeting on the awareness of the spread of this new virus. Coronaviruses are a large group of respiratory viruses that cause different diseases.

The recent case marks the first outbreak of China in which almost 41 people in the city of Wuhan were diagnosed with this new virus having symptoms like those of pneumonia and one death case was reported.

This has caused serious alarm because of threats of Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) whose 2002-2003 outbreaks have killed 349 mainland Chinese and almost 299 people in Hong Kong. That epidemic had a devastating impact on tourism and the economy was badly affected.

The organization confirmed that the Chinese outbreak was caused by the unknown type of coronavirus. It has a broad family that ranges from the common cold to severe illness such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) or SARS.

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Thai Health Officials informed the agency about patient recovery from the illness. The agency stressed that the spread of this new virus beyond China wasn’t surprising. The occurrence of cases wasn’t unexpected in other countries and reinforces that why WHO demands ongoing strict monitoring and preparedness in other countries.

This pointed out that the agency had issued guidance on the detection and treatment of this new virus and stressed that genetic sequencing of this virus made a quick diagnosis possible.

The World Health Organization said that this outbreak was linked to the seafood market in Wuhan, China which also sells live animals and meat of wild animals. This has intrigued concern that the infectious pathogen had emerged from animals and potentially harmful like SARS. To date, no infections are reported among the health care professionals and there is no as such evidence on the human to human transmission. The outbreak initiated in late 2019.

The WHO has not yet recommended any safety measures for travelers or any restrictions on trading with China but taking the whole situation seriously. Scientists still have no authentic idea about the source of this virus. In their recent statement, it was stated that the director-general of WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will do a consultation with Emergency Committee members and will call for the committee meeting on an urgent basis.

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One of the Professors of the emerging diseases at the Duke-NUS Medical School, Linfa Wang said he was traveling to the central city of Wuhan. Two other scientists from Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control will also come in a few days. Professor Wang and his colleagues showed that bat coronavirus had caused acute diarrhea in pork which led to a huge outbreak in which almost 25000 pigs were killed from 2013 to 2016 in Guangdong province of southern China.

Professor Wang said the complete investigation of this mysterious virus was almost like SARS. All symptoms were the same; the only difference was that there was no infection among health care workers whereas everything else was just like the SARS virus.