People wear masks in the Mass Transit Railway in Hong Kong, China. (May James/Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Since the new coronavirus emerged little over a month ago, experts have wondered where it came from and how deadly it could be.” data-reactid=”31″>Since the new coronavirus emerged little over a month ago, experts have wondered where it came from and how deadly it could be.
The first human to have caught the virus is thought to have done so at a seafood and live animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.
Of the six coronavirus strains previously known to infect humans, the new one initially appeared most genetically similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which killed 774 people during its 2004 outbreak.
Scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai have since found it appears to be 89.1% genetically similar to “a group of Sars-like coronaviruses”.
With Sars having started in bats, this suggests the nocturnal creatures may also be responsible for the new coronavirus, which has killed at least 361 people in China so far.
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Security staff check on the temperature of students entering a university n Manila, Philippines, as public fear over the new Ccronavirus grows. (Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Authorities have confirmed 17,485 cases of the new coronavirus in mainland China alone, according to John Hopkins University.” data-reactid=”57″>Authorities have confirmed 17,485 cases of the new coronavirus in mainland China alone, according to John Hopkins University.
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="The Lancet journal has reported, however, that 75,000 people could have battled the infection just in Wuhan.” data-reactid=”58″>The Lancet journal has reported, however, that 75,000 people could have battled the infection just in Wuhan.
Most of those who initially became ill worked at or visited the market, which was promptly shut.
The Fudan scientists analysed one of the workers, a 41-year-old man who was admitted to hospital on 26 December after battling a fever, tight chest and cough for a week.
A “cluster” of patients were first reported to the World Health Organziation on 31 December.
A “lung sample” taken from the worker allowed the virus – called 2019-nCoV – to be genetically screened, revealing its similarity to Sars.
“The identification of multiple Sars-like-coronaviruses in bats led to the idea these animals act as the natural reservoir hosts of these viruses,” the scientists wrote in the journal Nature.
Another coronavirus strain is Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), which killed 858 during its 2012 outbreak.
Mers is also thought to have originated in bats, with camels being the intermediate host.
Not all experts are convinced by the role of snakes in 2019-nCoV’s outbreak, however.
Speaking when the Peking University results were released, Professor Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia said: “It is still not known with certainty and it may never be definitively proved.
“There are initial, although contested, reports the virus has already been detected in both bats and snakes, and the strains in both bats and snakes are similar to each other, and to the strains from human cases.
“There is still much more to find out about the virus and there is a real possibility the exact origin may not be found.
“The big question is no longer where it came from, but how and where it is spreading in human populations.”
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Coronaviruses are “RNA viruses”, which means they “mutate all the time”, Yahoo UK reported.” data-reactid=”93″>Coronaviruses are “RNA viruses”, which means they “mutate all the time”, Yahoo UK reported.
In simple terms, RNA is a “precursor” to the more well-known DNA.
Exposure to live animals at the market likely enabled the virus to “jump” from its origin species into humans.
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A woman wears a face mask in Manila, Philippines. (Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)
Like all coronaviruses, the new strain initially causes flu-like symptoms.
China’s National Health Commission confirmed the virus can spread person-to-person, via sneezing, coughing or shaking contaminated hands.
In the most severe cases, victims are succumbing to pneumonia.
This comes about when a respiratory infection causes the alveoli (air sacs) in the lungs to become inflamed and filled with fluid or pus, according to the American Lung Association.
The lungs then struggle to draw in air, resulting in reduced oxygen in the bloodstream.
Pneumonia is usually caused by bacteria, which tend to respond to antibiotics.
<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="When a virus is to blame, pneumonia may be treated via “antiviral medication”, according to the American Lung Association.” data-reactid=”125″>When a virus is to blame, pneumonia may be treated via “antiviral medication”, according to the American Lung Association.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Patients who are older, don’t speak English, and don’t have a high school education are more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay in Canada, according to new research.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information measured preventableharmful events from 2023 to 2024, such as bed sores and medication errors,experienced by patients who received acute care in hospital.
The research published Thursday shows patients who don’t speak English or French are 30 per cent more likely to experience harm. Patients without a high school education are 20 per cent more likely to endure harm compared to those with higher education levels.
The report also found that patients 85 and older are five times more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay compared to those under 20.
“The goal of this report is to get folks thinking about equity as being a key dimension of the patient safety effort within a hospital,” says Dana Riley, an author of the report and a program lead on CIHI’s population health team.
When a health-care provider and a patient don’t speak the same language, that can result in the administration of a wrong test or procedure, research shows. Similarly, Riley says a lower level of education is associated with a lower level of health literacy, which can result in increased vulnerability to communication errors.
“It’s fairly costly to the patient and it’s costly to the system,” says Riley, noting the average hospital stay for a patient who experiences harm is four times more expensive than the cost of a hospital stay without a harmful event – $42,558 compared to $9,072.
“I think there are a variety of different reasons why we might start to think about patient safety, think about equity, as key interconnected dimensions of health-care quality,” says Riley.
The analysis doesn’t include data on racialized patients because Riley says pan-Canadian data was not available for their research. Data from Quebec and some mental health patients was also excluded due to differences in data collection.
Efforts to reduce patient injuries at one Ontario hospital network appears to have resulted in less harm. Patient falls at Mackenzie Health causing injury are down 40 per cent, pressure injuries have decreased 51 per cent, and central line-associated bloodstream infections, such as IV therapy, have been reduced 34 per cent.
The hospital created a “zero harm” plan in 2019 to reduce errors after a hospital survey revealed low safety scores. They integrated principles used in aviation and nuclear industries, which prioritize safety in complex high-risk environments.
“The premise is first driven by a cultural shift where people feel comfortable actually calling out these events,” says Mackenzie Health President and Chief Executive Officer Altaf Stationwala.
They introduced harm reduction training and daily meetings to discuss risks in the hospital. Mackenzie partnered with virtual interpreters that speak 240 languages and understand medical jargon. Geriatric care nurses serve the nearly 70 per cent of patients over the age of 75, and staff are encouraged to communicate as frequently as possible, and in plain language, says Stationwala.
“What we do in health care is we take control away from patients and families, and what we know is we need to empower patients and families and that ultimately results in better health care.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
