Wuhan Virus: Origins, Impact, and Implications

Wuhan Virus: Origins,

Impact, and Implications

KB Teo

SYNOPSIS

Wuhan is a major city in Hubei, central China.  The virus started in mid-December 2019. It has already claimed at least eighty victims and 2700 infected (26/1/20).  The WHO is worried that it may spread very fast throughout the world.

COMMENTARY

The Wuhan virus belongs to a family of viruses known as coronaviruses. These viruses, named for the crown-like spikes on their surfaces, infect mostly bats, pigs and small mammals. But they mutate easily and can jump from animals to humans, and from one human to another. In recent years, they have become a growing player in infectious-disease outbreaks world-wide.

The spread of the deadly Wuhan virus from its country of origin, China, to other countries in Asia and the United States has raised fears that the virus could lead to a global pandemic, causing stock prices around the world to fall this week.  Here’s how the virus could impact the global economy as a whole, according to the economic impacts from past outbreaks.

• At least nine people have died in China from the Wuhan virus, with more than 440 infections reported in the country.
• The virus has spread from China to other Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, and the first documented case in the US was announced this week.
• The spread of the virus has raised fears of a global pandemic, which has impacted stocks around the world.
• Here’s how the Wuhan virus could impact the global economy, based on what we know about past outbreaks.

A new respiratory virus has emerged, sickening hundreds and causing some deaths. The virus originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan (Hubei province), quickly spread throughout China and other countries in Asia, and has come to the U.S. Health authorities expect that it will spread even further.

Still, the World Health Organization declined on 23 January 2020 to declare the outbreak a global public health emergency, citing a limited number of cases abroad and efforts under way to bring it under control.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhamom Ghebreyesus said he would reconvene the committee if the situation changes—even if that happens in the next couple of days. “This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency,” he said. “It may yet become one.”

The outbreak is believed to have originated in December 2019 in a seafood and meat market in Wuhan. After spreading throughout China and other countries in Asia, it recently arrived in the U.S. The U.S. case involves a Washington state man in his 30s who had recently traveled to Wuhan. In China, the outbreak is responsible for hundreds of confirmed cases and more than a dozen deaths.

Patients have had a fever, cough and other symptoms of pneumonia. Public-health officials have developed diagnostic tests, which are being used to confirm whether a patient has the Wuhan coronavirus or another infection. Five major airports in the U.S. are screening arriving international travelers for fever; those who have one are then screened for other symptoms.

So far, the Wuhan virus appears to be milder than SARS or MERS, though it has sickened some people severely and there have been deaths. MERS killed about a third of those infected, while SARS resulted in the deaths of about one in 10. By contrast, the mortality rate from the Wuhan virus is tracking at roughly 3%. Many patients who have died were over 60 years old, had other illnesses such as diabetes and were admitted to hospitals when their illness was advanced.

There aren’t any drugs or vaccines approved specifically for the Wuhan virus. Antivirals already on the market might treat the infection, which researchers say they will start to investigate. In addition, a few vaccine makers have recently said they would begin developing products targeting the Wuhan virus.

Sharing data during an outbreak is vital for public health. But it can also lead to sensational, and even spurious, research, like a controversial new paper claiming that people probably picked up a novel coronavirus from snakes.  Experts dismissed this outlandish theory.

One of the many mysteries behind the outbreak of a new respiratory-tract-attacking virus that’s now infected nearly 650 people and killed 18 in China is where, exactly, it came from. The initial cluster of pneumonia-like cases showed up in the city of Wuhan mid-December 2019. Most of those patients had some tie to a wet market there—a place where people sell both live and dead animals, including exotic species.

Though nothing has been confirmed, epidemiologists suspect that the novel coronavirus crossed over into humans somewhere inside the market, which has been shuttered since 1 January 2020. Tracking down the right viral culprit is vital to preventing future interspecies spillover. In 2003, SARS ripped through the same area of China.  The outbreak was fully contained only when civet cats, which had passed the virus along to humans, were removed from the region’s markets.

A national task force of Chinese researchers working swiftly to isolate and sequence the virus shared a draft of its genome in a public database earlier this month. This enabled labs all over the world to design diagnostic tests to flag cases as they spread outside of China. So far, fewer than a dozen cases have been confirmed in other countries, including Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the US. The release of genetic data has also spurred a flurry of new research. 

What started as a cluster of 27 people with pneumonia – with common symptoms including fever, dry cough, chest tightness and difficulty breathing – has spiralled to 9692 confirmed cases, including medical staff, and 513 deaths (as of 31/1/20).  The cases span 13 provinces in mainland China as well as Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Taiwan and Macau.

China was very efficient and open in identifying the virus, a new strain of coronavirus, within just over a week. Chinese scientists sequenced the virus’s genetic code and, within days, shared that information with the world.  This allowed researchers from Germany to rapidly develop and openly share a suite of specific nucleic acid tests that sensitively identify the virus by detecting small amounts of its ribonucleic acid (DNA). Researchers in Hong Kong and from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control then published their own different tests.

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KB Teo is a former diplomat with the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He attended the UN General Assembly as part of the MFA delegation.