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Researchers around the world are trying to determine if the virus is mutating ito to be more contagious
The chinese doctors are seeing the coronavirus manifest differently among patients in the new cluster of cases in the northeast region, in comparison with the original outbreak in Wuhan, suggesting that the pathogen may be changing in unknown ways, and that complicates efforts to eradicate it.
The patients that are found in the northern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang seem to carry the virus for a long period of time and taking more time to test negative, Qiu Haibo, one of China’s top critical care doctors, told state television on Tuesday.
Patients in the northeast also seem to be taking more time than the one to two weeks was observed in Wuhan to develop the symptoms after the infection, and this delay in the start makes it more difficult for the authorities to catch the cases before they spread, said Qiu, who now is in the north of the region to treat patients.
“The longest period of time during which the infected patients do not show symptoms has created groups of the family of the infections,” said Qiu, who before it was sent to Wuhan to help in the original outbreak. Some of the 46 cases have been reported in the last two weeks, distributed in three cities-Shulan, Jilin city, and Shenyang, in two provinces, a resurgence of the infection that led to a renewed blocking of measures through a region of 100 million people.
Scientists still do not fully understand if the virus is changing significantly and the differences Chinese doctors are seeing could be due to the fact that they are able to observe the patients more thoroughly and from a much earlier stage than in Wuhan. When the outbreak first exploded in the centre of the Chinese city, the local office of the health care system was so overwhelmed that only the most serious cases were being treated. The northeast cluster is also much smaller than that of Hubei of the outbreak, which ultimately sickened more than 68,000 people.
Still, the findings suggest that the uncertainty about how the virus manifests itself will hamper the efforts of governments to stem its spread and re-open their battered economies. China has one of the most comprehensive virus detection and testing regimes at the global level and, however, is still struggling to contain your new cluster.
Researchers around the world are trying to determine if the virus is mutating in a meaningful way to be more contagious as it races through the human population, but the first researchsuggesting this possibility has been criticized for being exaggerated.
“In theory, some changes in the genetic structure can lead to changes in the structure of the virus or how the virus behaves,” said Keiji Fukuda, director and clinical professor at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health. “However, many mutations lead to no discernible changes at all.”
It is likely that the observations in China does not have a simple correlation with a mutation and “very clear” evidence is necessary before concluding that the virus is mutating, ” he said.
The Northeast Of The Differences
Qiu said that the doctors have also noticed the patients in the northeast of the cluster seem to have damage in their lungs, while patients in Wuhan suffered multiple organ damage through the heart, the kidneys and the intestine.
Officials now believe that the new cluster came from contact with infected arrivals from Russia, which has one of the worst outbreaks in Europe. Genetic sequencing has shown a match between the northeast of the cases, and Russian-linked ones, said Qiu.
Between the north east cluster, only 10% have become critical and 26 are hospitalized.
China is moving aggressively to stop the spread of the new cluster ahead of its annual political meeting in Beijing is scheduled for the beginning of this week. As thousands of delegates of the current in the capital in order to support the government agenda China’s central leadership is determined stability and control.
The northeastern provinces have requested a refund of blocking measures, the cessation of train services, closure of schools and the sealing of residential complexes, to the dismay of the residents who thought that the worst was past.
“People should not assume the peak has past, or are we going to let our guard down,” Wu Anhua, a senior infectious disease physician, said on state television on Tuesday. “It is entirely possible that the epidemic will last for a long time.”
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