You Ask, They Answer
progress to pneumonia, and then there are other people who
don’t seem to have much of a fever but have aches and pains.
There are some who complain of diarrhoea. Symptom-wise, it
looks like a lot of other viral infections, which makes it much
more difficult to research and treat. This is especially so in the
northern hemisphere, where it’s also flu season.
Q
A
: The mortality rate is low compared to other
epidemics, so why should we worry?
: I’m really concerned about how things are going in
mainland China. We’ve seen the number of cases and
deaths rising, which clearly makes this a very difficult health
issue for the authorities to deal with.
Even though the mortality rate of the coronavirus is similar
to that of seasonal flu, a huge number of people are susceptible.
We don’t have a vaccine like we do for flu every year, while
the number of cases we’re seeing is incredible. The impact it’s
having on China’s health services is unthinkable.
Previous SARS and MERS epidemics had a higher mortality
rate, but just because of the sheer numbers involved it’s still a
very serious thing for mainland China.
Q
A
: Have measures to contain the virus been
: How can I protect myself against the coronavirus?
effective?
: The measures that China has been putting in place to
: Very simply, the best way to protect yourself
stop the spread, and how other countries have been on
against the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV, which was
the alert, are clearly working. This has been going on for some
first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan on December 31, is
weeks now, and we haven’t seen anything like what has been
by washing your hands, not touching your face, and staying
happening in mainland China and other countries,
away from people who are sick.
even during Chinese New Year.
You see lots of people wearing surgical masks,
Malaysia, for example, has had 22 cases as of this
but the ones you can buy in shops can’t really stop
People can
writing, so clearly the measures of testing people
people getting infected. They’re used more by people
be infected
by touching
and isolating them are working outside China at the
who are already infected, as these masks help them
a surface the
moment. How long can this go on and how much
prevent the spread of viruses to others.
virus has landed
worse are things going to get in mainland China —
The coronavirus is spread mostly by coughs and
on and then
we don’t know that yet.
sneezes, ending up in droplets that can either directly
touching their
Whatever happens, this coronavirus epidemic
get into people’s ears, eyes, or mouths or land on
face, so hand
hygiene is
is going to provide a test case for how to deal with
surfaces. People can be infected by touching a surface
important
something on a very large scale. SARS has just paled
the virus has landed on and then touching their face,
into insignificance compared to what is happening
so hand hygiene is important. We don’t know yet how
now. I think there’s going to be a lot of things to learn
long the coronavirus can live in the open.
from this. It’s a warning: these things can happen anywhere,
: What are the symptoms?
and we’re probably going to see more of them as time goes on.
: This is one of many things that are still up in the
The question is how are we going to prepare for this globally. In
air, but we’re learning more about the virus with
our interconnected world, things can happen anywhere, so we
every new case. For some people, it took only a day or so from
all need to be prepared.
infection before they started showing symptoms, while it’s
taken closer to two weeks for others. The more we find out
Dr Siouxie Wiles
about the cases, the clearer that will be. On the whole, a lot of
Dr Siouxie Wiles is a microbiologist and an associate
people seem to be infected quite quickly.
professor at the University of Auckland.
There are some people who begin with a fever and then
Q A
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14
MARCH 2020
GlobalHealthAndTravel.com