Category Archives: Infectious Diseases

Coronavirus: Japan to trial HIV antiretroviral drugs on patients – latest news

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UK prepares evacuation flight for cruise ship passengers. Follow the latest news

The Italian luxury fashion house Prada has postponed a fashion show due to take place in Japan in May.

In a statement, the company said:

Due to the current uncertainty related to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Prada Resort fashion show originally scheduled for May 21 in Japan will be postponed.

Repatriating passengers from the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship in Japan is not without risks, a medical expert has said.

Paul Hunter, professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said:

Considerable care needs to be made to ensure that the passengers do not transmit infection between themselves or to cabin crew during the flight home and once back on home soil they do not act as a focus for the spread of the disease into their home countries – any returning passengers may be put in quarantine on their return.

It is well known that certain infections such as influenza and norovirus can spread rapidly on board cruise ships. Cruise ships take passengers and crew from all over the world, often passengers are relatively elderly, they spend most of their time on board indoors mixing with others.

The most likely [infection] route is direct person-to-person transmission when people are close to an infected person, but with currently publicly available information it is not possible to rule out other issues at this stage.

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Health experts question coronavirus quarantine measures on cruise ship

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Keeping passengers on ship may have helped spread of coronavirus, says one lawyer

Quarantine conditions imposed on a stricken ship in Japan are both morally dubious and appear counterproductive, according to health experts who fear the vessel has become an incubator for the coronavirus Covid-19.

Thousands of people have spent the past two weeks stuck onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which now accounts for the biggest cluster of cases outside mainland China. More than 540 passengers in the Japanese port Yokohama are confirmed to have the virus, after 88 additional cases were confirmed on Tuesday.

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Apple warns of coronavirus causing iPhone shortages

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Company hit by shutdown in China and says it will fail to meet quarterly revenue target

Apple has warned of global “iPhone supply shortages” resulting from its Chinese factories being shut because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Californian company told investors on Monday night it would fail to meet its quarterly revenue target of $63-67bn (£48-52bn) because of the “temporarily constrained” supply of iPhones and a dramatic drop in Chinese shoppers during the virus crisis. Apple did not provide a new forecast for its second-quarter revenue.

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Coronavirus updates: China’s second worst-hit city bans residents from leaving home – live news

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People who flout new order in Xiaogan city in central Hubei face detention for 10 days as global death toll reaches 1,775. Follow live news and latest updates

Shares in China have posted strong gains after the country’s central bank cut the interest rate on its medium-term lending to try to cushion businesses from the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. The bank also injected another 200bn yuan of liquidity into the system.

The move is expected to pave the way for a reduction in the country’s benchmark loan prime rate on Thursday, Reuters reports, to lower borrowing costs and ease financial strains on companies hit by the epidemic.

China CSI 300 erases Covid-19 slump.

Why?
* Short selling ban (in China this means the Gulag!)
* Funds need gov't approval to sell (prove an outflow)
* Record repo injections by the PBoC, rate cuts
* Xi - will cut taxes and record fiscal stimulus

Rally means all is good, right? pic.twitter.com/hCRUaEiHdZ

#PBOC injects 200 bn yuan liquidity via 1-year medium-term lending facility (MLF).

PBOC cut the rate on MLF to 3.15%, from 3.25% in the previous operation. https://t.co/EXAEiLHayq

A reporter is asking about Australians onboard the MS Westerdam cruise ship that docked in Cambodia last Thursday. An American passenger on that ship was subsequently diagnosed with Covid-19, after testing in Malaysia. The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne answers:

There were some Australians on the vessel Westerdam. 39 of those have remained in Phnom Penh after the ship finally docked. They have been provided with hotel accommodation in the capital.

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Coronavirus: 70 more cases on Japan cruise ship as China infections pass 68,000

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US, Canada and Hong Kong offer citizens on Diamond Princess flights home as death toll inside China reaches 1,665

A further 70 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 355, as three countries say they will fly their citizens on the ship home. It comes as China’s National Health Commission announced the death toll inside the country had risen to 1,665, with 68,500 infections.

The US embassy in Japan announced on Saturday that more than 400 US nationals would be flown home from the quarantined Diamond Princess, currently docked in the port of Yokohama, south of Tokyo.

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Pressure grows on UK to rescue citizens from coronavirus-stricken ship

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Passengers on Diamond Princess liner ‘disillusioned’ with government over lack of action

• All the day’s developments

Pressure is growing on the British government to airlift citizens stranded on a cruise ship stricken by coronavirus, after a Chinese tourist in France became the first person to die from the disease in Europe.

The US announced late on Friday that it would be evacuating more than 400 nationals from the quarantined ship, which has had nearly 300 confirmed coronavirus cases, and British travellers called on their government to do the same.

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Chinese tourist in France becomes Europe’s first coronavirus fatality

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French health minister confirms death of man from virus that has killed more than 1,500 people

Europe has recorded its first coronavirus fatality, a Chinese tourist in France, it has been confirmed.

The death of the 80-year-old man, who was visiting Paris with his daughter when he was taken to hospital three weeks ago after falling ill, also marks the first coronavirus mortality outside Asia since the start of the outbreak.

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Coronavirus: cases pass 66,000 as Beijing orders 14-day quarantine for returnees

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Covid-19 cases pass 66,000 in China as residents in capital who flout new restrictions told they will be ‘held accountable under the law’

Beijing has ordered people returning to the city from holidays to quarantine themselves for 14 days to try to contain the coronavirus spread, as the death toll in China from the outbreak passed 1,500.

On Saturday, the country’s National Health Commission said 2,641 new cases were confirmed in the previous 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed infections across mainland China to 66,492. There were also 143 deaths in the 24 hours to midnight on Friday, taking total fatalities from the virus to 1,523.

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Coronavirus outbreak: senior US official accuses China of lack of transparency

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Top White House official Larry Kudlow questions approach of Politburo as China brings in ‘wartime’ measures in more cities

A senior White House official has called on Beijing to be more transparent over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak as Chinese authorities expanded “wartime” measures to limit its spread.

“We are a little disappointed that we haven’t been invited in and we’re a little disappointed in the lack of transparency coming from the Chinese,” said Larry Kudlow, the director of the US National Economic Council.

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Huge rise in coronavirus cases casts doubt over scale of epidemic

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China reports 13,332 additional cases due to a change in how authorities are counting them

The true scale of the epidemic caused by the new coronavirus in Hubei province has been thrown into doubt after the Chinese authorities reported more than 13,300 extra cases going back over an unknown number of days or weeks.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the huge jump in cases in Hubei, bringing the total to more than 60,000 worldwide, was due to a change in the way Chinese authorities was counting them.

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Coronavirus: WHO scrambling to get details of new cases – live news

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Latest figures from China show big jump amid a change in how cases are counted

As our story makes clear, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the huge jump in cases in Hubei – bringing the total to more than 60,000 worldwide – was caused by a change in the way Chinese authorities were counting them.

The WHO is now working hard to get further details on when the extra cases of “Covid-19” occurred to paint a true picture of the development of the epidemic in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei.

Reuters reports that Donald Trump has praised China over its handling of the outbreak, adding that the United States was working closely with Beijing.

“I think they’ve handled it professionally, and I think they’re extremely capable,” Trump, who has previously been at loggerheads with the Chinese authorities over trade issues, said in a podcast broadcast on iHeart Radio on Thursday.

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African countries braced for ‘inevitable’ arrival of coronavirus

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Health centres step up preparations as World Health Organization raises fears about ability to cope with major outbreak

African health authorities are stepping up preparedness for coronavirus after the head of the World Health Organzation described the outbreak as a “very grave threat for the rest of the world”.

The number of African countries that can test for the virus tripled to 15 this week, with more expected to have testing labs up and running in the coming days. The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said health centres were on “high alert” for new cases.

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Coronavirus: Cruise ship turned away from five countries allowed to dock in Cambodia – latest news

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MS Westerdam, which has 1,455 passengers and 802 crew, will dock on Thursday as WHO chief warns coronavirus threat is greater than terrorism

A paper in the Lancet medical journal, published online, should dispel some of the worries around reported deaths of some babies born to women who have fallen ill with what is now being called COVID-19 infection.

The authors say preliminary evidence suggests the new coronavirus cannot be passed to the baby in the womb.

Hi, Amy Walker here taking over the blog from my colleague Simon Murphy.

Patients who were treated by the two Brighton GPs who have been diagnosed with coronavirus are being traced by health officials, the BBC has reported.

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Coronavirus live updates: Thailand bars cruise ship as deaths in China pass 1,000 – latest news

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Hong Kong’s Carrie Lam tells people to stay at home as nervous global investors turn to safe havens like gold. Follow updates live

Chinese state media is reporting that party secretary of Health Commission of Hubei Province, Zhang Jin, and the director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, Liu Yingzi, have been fired.

Party Secretary of Health Commission of Hubei Province Zhang Jin and director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission Liu Yingzi were removed from their posts. The two posts will be taken over by Wang Hesheng, a Standing Committee member of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee. pic.twitter.com/AnGOVOvDOw

The BBC’s correspondent in China, Stephen McDonell, has tweeted about the China’s national health commission changing the way it counts confirmed cases of the virus.

I have seen a lot of this on social media today.

There does however seem to be a suggestion that a change in definition from #China’s National Health Commission re “confirmed case” could’ve soaked up some of the reduction. Patients with no #coronavirus symptoms not counted as “confirmed” any more even if they test positive.

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Xi Jinping appears in public as China returns to work after holiday

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President greets workers in Beijing as WHO chief warns cases could be ‘tip of iceberg’

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has made his first public appearance in weeks, as some people began to return to work following the lunar new year holiday, which was extended as authorities grappled with the coronavirus outbreak.

Xi, who has been absent from public view as the crisis worsened, visited a neighbourhood in Beijing’s Chaoyang district. The president had his temperature taken and greeted residents and workers, according to a brief video posted by the state broadcaster CCTV.

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Coronavirus live updates: China goes back to work as cases exceed 40,000 – latest news

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Death toll inside China rises to 908 as the WHO dispatches a team of experts to Beijing

A memorial for whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang has been held in New York. Li’s death sparked an outpouring of anger inside China. Li was silenced by the government for trying to warn people over the threat of the new virus, and later died after contracting it.

The memorial for Doctor #LiWenliang at Central Park, NYC. The crowd repeated his famous line three times: “一个健康的社会不应该只有一种声音 There should be more than one voice in a healthy society,” followed by a long whistle. pic.twitter.com/fIERhUowH0

Some welcome news for the 3,700 people onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is quarantined in Yokohama harbour after several cases of coronavirus among passengers.

The quarantine period of the #DiamondPrincess will come to an end on 19 February.
The period will be extended beyond the 19 Feb as appropriate only for close contacts of newly confirmed cases. They need to remain in quarantine for 14 days from last contact with a confirmed case pic.twitter.com/SlaPaKFfwE

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Philippines coronavirus patient has recovered, authorities say

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Woman, 38, who travelled with the only victim to die outside China and Hong Kong, is no longer infectious, says doctor

The first case of novel coronavirus in the Philippines – a Chinese tourist from Wuhan who had been travelling with a man who died of the virus – is no longer showing symptoms and may be discharged soon.

The last test on the 38-year-old woman, conducted on 6 February, showed she was negative for the virus, according to the health department. Two consecutive negative tests are required before a patient may be discharged.

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‘Contact is limited’: inside the world’s coronavirus quarantines – video

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People who are being held in facilities in dozens of countries explain what daily life is like and their hopes for returning home soon. China's Hubei province, where the coronavirus originated from, is under lockdown to limit contagion. The death toll has risen to 724, with 86 more people dying in mainland China, according to officials. This is the highest one-day jump so far

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If China valued free speech, there would be no coronavirus crisis

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Country could have contained spread of disease if only it had learned lessons from Sars outbreak

The death of the whistleblower Chinese doctor Li Wenliang has aroused strong emotions across China. Social media is awash with posts mourning the death of a martyr who tried to raise alarm over the coronavirus but was taken into a police station instead for “spreading false rumours” and “disrupting social order”.

Grief quickly turned into angry demands for free speech. The trending topic “we want freedom of speech”, which attracted millions of views, and links to Do You Hear the People Sing, a song popularised in recent Hong Kong protests, were quickly censored by police.

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China trials anti-HIV drug on coronavirus patients

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News of Kaletra being tested as a possible treatment for the disease sparks panic buying

Coronavirus – latest news

A drug used to treat people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is being trialled in patients in China as a possible therapy against the coronavirus.

News that HIV drugs are being deployed in hospitals, however, has led to panic buying on the black market by people who fear they are ill or are going to get sick. They have been obtaining the drug, Kaletra, from generics companies in India and even from people with HIV in China willing to sell or donate their own stocks.

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