The World Health Organization’s decision on Thursday not to class the virus as an “international emergency”, partly because of the low number of overseas cases, has surprised some experts.
However, others have recognised that the WHO’s position on declaring a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) was a “finely balanced one”. That’s a view taken by Sir Jeremy Farrar, a medical researcher at the medical charity the Wellcome Trust.
The moment to watch out for was when the virus was transmitted among people who had not been in China, he told the BBC’s Today programme.
Comparisons with Sars were valid, he said, but at the same time he lauded the “draconian and extraordinary” measures being taken in China, which he also commended in terms of being transparent and sharing information.
Elsewhere, Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the University of Leeds, said he was “personally surprised” that a PHEIC had not been called given similarities to Sars.
“However, it is often difficult to understand the precise criteria by which one of these is implemented – it sounds as though the committee had some differences of opinion,” he said, in a statement issued by the Science Media Centre.
Prof Tom Solomon, director of the UK’s health protection research unit in emerging infections at the University of Liverpool, said: “The WHO’s decision not to declare the novel coronavirus outbreak in China [a PHEIC] will surprise many. The number of reported cases and deaths is doubling every couple of days, and patients have now been reported from many Asian countries, as well as the Middle East and United States.”
China has added four more cities to its transport ban, affecting 41 million people, according to the AFP news agency.
On the eve of China’s lunar new year, transportation had been shut down already in at least 10 cities with a total of about 33 million people. The cities are Wuhan, where the illness has been concentrated, and nine of its neighbours in central China’s Hubei province.
A militia member checks the body temperature of a passenger on a vehicle at an expressway toll gate in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Thursday. Photograph: EPA
'Highly likely' there will be cases in UK – NHS official
It is “highly likely” that there will be cases of the virus in the UK, according to Prof Paul Cosford, medical director for Public Health England, an arm of the NHS that has tested 14 people so far.
Specialist treatment centres in various parts of the country have already been designated and authorities are focusing on providing information, with a particular focus on communities such as Chinese students.
“The NHS is fully prepared for treating people. They have their specialist infectious disease centres and have identified the ones that people will be referred to,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.
Cosford added that it was “very early days” in terms of saying whether the virus would be as serious as Sars and it would be wrong to jump to conclusions.
The next update on figure in the UK is expected to come at midday.
It was confirmed last night that two people diagnosed with flu were being tested for the virus in Scotland, where three others are also being tested on a precautionary basis.
At least three of the patients are believed to be Chinese nationals.
While there remain no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Scotland, the Scottish government has set up a daily incident management team with Health Protection Scotland to continue monitoring the situation as it develops.
While the Scottish government would not confirm where the patients were being treated, this morning the Courier newspaper reports that two are from the Tayside region, two from Glasgow and one from Lothian.
Dundee University, in Tayside, has a joint education partnership with Wuhan University. It said five members of staff had returned from a visit to Wuhan last week but that no health concerns had been raised.
Aberdeen University said five of its staff members had also visited Wuhan during the outbreak, and one of those – who has a non-teaching role - is working from home as a precautionary measure.
The first version of a vaccine has already entered laboratories at the global pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson but it will be close to year before vaccines are available publicly from drugs companies.
That’s according to Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, and Richard Hatchett, ceo of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which is funding two of projects and co-funding the third to develop vaccines.
Speaking in Davos, Hatchett told the BBC’s Today programme that CEPI hoped the vaccines it had announced partnerships for could enter clinical trials in the summer.
It would be close to a year before they were available, however, he added, and this was a very ambitious timeline. He also said that restrictions on air travel into countries such as the UK would not keep the virus out and for now the only means of responding were via public health interventions.
Companies were also looking at progressing the manufacture and release of protective equipment for hospital workers and others, said Stoffels, who added: “We know that this could become a very big global epidemic.”
Both men said the speed of development on drugs to respond to global crises had dramatically improved in the wake of the Ebola crisis, which Stoffels described as a “wake up call to the world”.
Singapore has confirmed two more cases of the new strain of coronavirus, its health ministry said on Friday, a day after identifying its first case of the infection that originated from China.
The ministry said it expected more imported cases because of high travel volume from China, Reuters reports. Singapore’s tally of confirmed cases is now three.
Visitors wear masks at Changi airport, Singapore, on Friday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Fewer people have been turning up at dedicated fever clinics in Wuhan, according to western reporters on the ground in the city.
They include Chris Buckley of the New York Times and Tom Hancock of the FT, who has tweeted some before and after pictures of one of the hospitals he visited on Friday.
Agree with @ChuBailiang that there are fewer people showing up to dedicated fever clinics in Wuhan today. Here's a before and after of the same hospital on Thursday/Friday afternoon. pic.twitter.com/GCg6rGMp0z
Hancock suggests this is a positive development as many may not have had any serious infection and standing next to others for hours could spread infection.
This is Ben Quinnpicking up the blog from London now. You can contact me on Twitter or flag up anything below the line here.
In the UK, 14 people have been tested for suspected coronavirus. So far five have been cleared and nine are still waiting for test results.
Public Health England has not given a breakdown of where the people were tested but Downing Street said four of the suspected cases in Scotland were believed to be Chinese nationals. Another patient is understood to have been tested at Belfast’s Royal Victoria hospital.
Rebecca Ratcliffe and Lillian Yang in Beijing have pulled together the latest on the chaos and despair in hospitals across Wuhan, as the lockdown spreads to encompass at least 20 million people.
