China’s strange virus might go global- WHO
TOPSHOT - This photo taken on February 12, 2017 shows an H7N9 bird flu patient being treated in a hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province. China is experiencing its deadliest outbreak of the H7N9 bird-flu strain since it first appeared in humans in 2013, killing 79 people in January alone and spurring several cities to suspend live poultry trade. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT (Photo credit should read STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Pneumonia caused by the new China coronavirus, seems to be going global, as the Ministry of Health in Japan has confirmed the first case of the infection. The new strain of coronavirus is in the same family as the Severe Acute Respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), originated in Wuhan, the largest city in central China, and was first recorded outside China, in Thailand early January. The Japanese man who tested positive to the infection is believed to have been to the Chinese city of Wuhan recently.
The World Health Organization (WHO) while giving a global warning to Hospitals said the new virus could spread as there are evidences of human-to-human transmission.
The acting head of WHO’s emerging diseases unit, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, while giving the warning said “This is something on our radar, it is possible, we need to prepare ourselves.”
Symptoms are said to include; catarrh, cough, fever, body aches, headache and shortness of breath. So far, 41 cases has been recorded, with a 61-year-old man reportedly dead from the pneumonia caused by the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Security personnel were seen outside the seafood market in Wuhan, central China, where the 61 years man who died from the new coronavirus had bought food. Also majority, of the infected cases has been traced to the seafood market.
When our reporter contacted a medical personnel working in one of the hospitals in Abuja where many foreign nationalities visit, she claimed she was not aware of the warning by WHO.