Fears grow of China cover-up over mystery virus

Amid fears China is covering up the true scale of the new Sars-like virus, a doctor admits his hospital is holding training sessions and buying extra equipment.

Medical staff carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital, Wuhan, where victims of the SARS-like virus are being treated. Picture: AFP.

Fears are growing that the outbreak of a deadly new respiratory virus in China is much bigger than first thought as the authorities are suspected of a cover-up.

Possible new cases have been identified in Shanghai and Shenzhen, far from Wuhan, the city where the Sars-like infection was first reported.

As the country enters its peak travel season around the lunar new year this week, with 3 billion trips to be made across the country, the government seems unprepared or unwilling to disclose how far the coronavirus has spread.

Those fears have been exacerbated by estimates from researchers at Imperial College London who believe, based on there being incidents of the virus in Thailand and Japan, that 1,723 people could have been infected in Wuhan by January 12. That is a far greater number than Chinese officials have acknowledged so far, confirming 62 cases, 17 of which were added on Friday, in Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people and a regional travel hub.

The concern that Beijing is underplaying the infection reflects in part that China was slow to acknowledge the 2002-03 epidemic of Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which appears to be related to the new coronavirus and which killed 349 people on the mainland. US airports have begun screening arrivals from Wuhan.

Officials in Wuhan are supposedly screening passengers on outbound international flights but the incidence of the virus elsewhere in Asia in travellers from Wuhan suggests the checks are far from guaranteed to identify all those infected.

Of the three overseas cases confirmed, in Thailand and Japan, all were in travellers from Wuhan. Yet there has been a mysterious absence of confirmed cases elsewhere in China, fuelling dark jokes among a sceptical public that the new virus, which is from the same family as the more deadly Sars virus, is purely for export.

An unnamed doctor in Shanghai told the South China Morning Post that he heard of one suspected case in the city and that his hospital was holding a training session on virus prevention and treatment. “The hospital is rushing to buy more masks, caps and hand sanitiser,” he said. “To be honest, I feel frightened. It is a virus with a lot of aspects that are still unclear.”

In its latest statement the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention sought to dismiss rumours of the new coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, including reports of more cases elsewhere. It insisted that all known cases were in Wuhan.

Some professionals said it was very likely that more cases had gone unreported because of a lack of centralised and compulsory testing and recording of results.

“Whether you travel abroad or to Hong Kong, you are subject to medical inspections, especially if you are from Wuhan, but there’s no such requirement at home to pay attention to patients with fever who are from Wuhan,” Wang Yuedan, an immunologist, told Chinese media.

Wei Wei, a doctor with DX Clinic, was reported as saying: “We don’t have the ability to test everyone with respiratory infections in and around Wuhan for 2019-nCoV, but other countries, with the sequencing information provided by us, can test those with respiratory infections and who have had anything to do with Wuhan and thus come to conclusion quickly.”

With rising public concerns, some hospitals in Beijing have started to require patients seeking cold treatments to report whether they have recently been to Wuhan and have any flu or respiratory infection symptoms. Those who answer “yes” are tested for the coronavirus.

Reports of a mysterious pneumonia in the city of Wuhan surfaced in December, with social media posts suggesting another Sars-type outbreak. In response, Wuhan Municipal Health Commission confirmed the infection but assured members of the public that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, although later it said that the possibility could not be ruled out.

Earlier this month health officials identified a new strain of virus from the same family as the Sars virus, although the mortality rate appears lower at this stage. So far two people have died and eight are in a serious condition. Of the 62 known cases, 19 have been discharged.

The World Health Organisation said on Twitter: “WHO is working closely with officials in China, Japan & Thailand. While there is currently no clear evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, we do not have enough evidence to evaluate the full extent of human-to-human transmission. This is one of the issues that WHO is monitoring closely.”

The Times