MANILA – The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said canceling events such as international conferences are not always necessary amid the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“Certainly it is always a concern if people come together…We have to have risk management procedures associated with that,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a press briefing posted online.
“You cannot shut down the world either. Normal activity must go on,” he added in response to questions about “super-spreaders” or individuals who are able to transmit disease at a much higher rate than the world average.
The issue of superspreading came up as more than 40,000 people have been infected with more than 1,000 dead. While 99 percent of the cases are in China, the 2019 novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019-nCoV ARD) has also reached other countries.
One report said a British businessman may have unintentionally spread the virus in at least three European countries, linking him to 11 other patients, according to The Guardian. The report said he likely contracted the virus in Singapore where he attended a sales conference. Of the 109 attendees, 94 traveled from abroad, including one from Wuhan, China.
After the sales conference in Singapore, the British man then went to a French ski resort with his family. It was later reported that five other British citizens who stayed in the same chalet tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus. Other confirmed cases were later reported.
However, Ghebreyesus said the numbers are still in single digits.
“What we need to see is reasonable, well-managed meetings and gatherings in which the risk is managed appropriately,” he said, explaining that events cannot be canceled at the slightest possibility of an infection.
“Where is the limit to this?” he said. “We need to remain calm. We need to be measured.”
“There is no zero risk in life,” he pointed out, saying that any event can lead to illness or accidents.
He said people should instead take a “risk management approach” by identifying risks and managing it.
WHO Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness Director Dr. Sylvie Briand also said that people should “look at superspreading events, not people” to avoid “stigmatization” or discriminating against individuals.
In the Philippines, the Department of Health has recommended the cancellation of concerts after it confirmed three positive cases of novel coronavirus.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS, France - A British man managed to pass on the coronavirus to at least 11 other people without ever setting foot in the epicenter of the outbreak in China, in an infectious journey that shows how the deadly virus can spread rapidly around a globalized world.
The adult British citizen, who has not been named publicly, caught the virus while attending a conference in Singapore and then passed it on to several compatriots while on holiday in the French Alps, before finally being diagnosed back in the UK.
Of those infected by the man, five have been hospitalized in France, five in Britain and one other man on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
How did he pass on the new coronavirus so rapidly in so many different places?
SINGAPORE
The man attended a business conference in Singapore from 20-22 January. More than 100 people took part in the conference, including at least one Chinese national from Hubei province, the epicentre of the epidemic that has now left more than 900 dead.
HAUTE-SAVOIE, FRENCH ALPS
He then traveled on to France to spend some days from January 24-28 at the ski resort of Contamines-Montjoie in the Alps with a group of other British citizens staying in two apartments in the same chalet.
BRIGHTON, ENGLAND
Stricken with fever after his return to the south of England, the man then went to a medical center in the southeastern town of Brighton where he was diagnosed with the coronavirus.
On February 6 he was transferred to the infectious diseases unit at the hospital of St Thomas in London.
Five other people who had contact with him at the French ski chalet were then confirmed by the British health authorities to be infected.
Some of the staff from The Grenadier pub, which the man went to just before he was hospitalized, have also been placed in isolation. But the pub has stayed open.
A medical center in Brighton said Monday it had temporarily closed for "an urgent operational health and safety reason".
The BBC and Sky News said one of the centre's staff members had tested positive for the virus, although this was not officially confirmed.
PARIS
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on February 8 that five British nationals, including a child, who stayed at the chalet with the man had tested positive.
Six other Britons staying in the same chalet were also hospitalized for observation.
"They show no serious signs" of those infected having any threat to their lives, added Buzyn.
Business owners in the Contamines-Montjoie resort have been keen to avoid any exaggerations of the threat as French families prepared to descend on the area for the half-term ski holidays.
Three schools attended by one of the British infected -- the child aged nine -- are closed and 100 have been people tested. All the results have been negative so far.
Similar efforts have been made to track down passengers who took a flight from Geneva -- the closest large airport to Contamines-Montjoie -- with the man when he went back to Britain on January 28.
MALLORCA, SPAIN
One member of the group he stayed with in France then sought medical help after returning to his home in Mallorca. The contamination took place between January 25 and January 29, according to the Spanish authorities.
The man in Mallorca is "currently in good health. He shows practically no symptom," said Fernando Simon, an official from Spain's health ministry.
The Mallorca man's wife and two daughters aged 10 and 7, who were also hospitalized for tests, have shown no sign of infection.
SPEED OF SPREAD SPURS FEARS
Experts said that the speed of the transmission showed the potential for the novel coronavirus to become a global pandemic.
"The recent report of transmission to British nationals in France are a worrying but perhaps not unexpected development," said Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, University of East Anglia.
"This reinforces the fact that transmission is no longer restricted to China. It is still too early to know when and if the epidemic will become pandemic and whether we will see start to see sustained person to person transmission in Europe."
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Agence France-Presse
