Written By: Nirmalya Dutta | Published : May 9, 2013 11:28 AM IST
France has identified its first case of coronavirus infection, a virus akin to SARS, the health ministry announced on Wednesday. This is the first and the only case confirmed in France to date , with an infection by a new virus from the coronavirus family, the ministry said. It said the infected person had stayed in the United Arab Emirates before returning to France, and is now placed in isolation, reported Xinhua. The coronavirus has till now killed 18 people, mostly in Saudi Arabia. The victim is believed to have just returned to France from a holiday in Dubai. This is the first and only confirmed case in France to date, it added. The patient is currently being kept in isolation and given respiratory assistance and blood transfusions and is going to be transferred to a hospital in Lille soon.
The virus, known as nCov-EMC is from the same family as the dreaded SARS virus which triggered a health scare a decade ago when it erupted in East Asia and killed over 800 people.
Why we need to be worried
The problem with viruses like this is multi-fold. Vaccines and medicines are usually devised after years of planning and studying a particular pathogen so that we can contain them. Unlike seasonal influenza, healthcare professionals have no idea how to deal with unknown ailments, the way it spreads and how to contain it. The last time the world faced a situation like this was a decade ago when the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) broke out near Hong Kong where a local farmer died from the disease. In the next eight months, the disease affected over eight thousand people and caused 775 deaths in 37 different countries. The more worrying fact was that it had at its peak a fatality rate of 9.6% (almost one out of every ten people affected died) and despite the fact that the disease disappeared after early 2003, it s not believed to have been eradicated and the virus can still be lurking in animals.
How it spreads
The novel coronavirus also demonstrated a SARS-like ability to spread from one person to another through close personal contact. Transmission can occur through droplets produced by an infected person when they sneeze or cough. They can spread through the air or when a person touches a surface contaminated with the droplets. Unprotected healthcare workers were particularly vulnerable during the 2002-03 epidemic. It s believed that the coronavirus has most likely spread to humans from another animal most probably bats though the virus hasn t been isolated on any particular animal species yet.
While the virus doesn t seem to pose any particular threat to the public as of now, healthcare professionals are watching all the developments closely. Most European and American healthcare facilities have the facilities to perform a test for the new coronavirus but the problem is figuring out who to test. An even bigger problem is the virus spreads in nations with limited healthcare facilities and huge populations like India, China or even South Africa. That could really trigger a pandemic of epic proportions and ramifications.
