Wuhan coronavirus could soon be declared a pandemic — what that means - Business Insider - Business Insider

• Scientists say the Wuhan coronavirus that has so far killed at least 362 people and infected over 17,000 other people could soon become a pandemic.
• The World Health Organization defines a pandemic as „the worldwide spread of a new disease.“
• It’s also defined by a lack of available treatment, a lack of human immunity, and an ability to spread from person to person.
• The Wuhan coronavirus is „very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,“ Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The New York Times on Sunday.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Scientists and disease experts say the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak could soon be declared a pandemic.

The World Health Organization last week designated the coronavirus – whose scientific name is 2019-nCoV – a „public-health emergency of international concern.“ Calling the virus a pandemic would take it to a new level, however, since that term refers to a more global outbreak.

The coronavirus is „very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,“ Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the US’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The New York Times on Sunday.

Here are criteria for a virus to be labeled a pandemic:

An epidemic, by contrast, refers to a more localized or regional outbreak rather than a global one. That’s what health agencies have so far considered the coronavirus outbreak to be.

The CDC says an epidemic is an „increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in that area.“

Similarly, the WHO defines an epidemic as the „occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specific health-related behaviour, or other health-related events clearly in excess of normal expectancy.“

Foto: An illustration of 2019-nCoV from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.sourceAssociated Press

Dr. Thomas Frieden, a former CDC director, told The Times that it is „increasingly unlikely“ that the coronavirus „can be contained.“

He added: „It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’t know how far, wide, or deadly it will be.“

Robert Webster, an infectious-disease expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, told The Associated Press on Sunday that „it sounds and looks as if it’s going to be a very highly transmissible virus.“

The Wuhan coronavirus has killed at least 362 people and infected more than 17,000 other people in more than 24 countries since the first cases were reported in December. All but one of those deaths were in China; on Saturday, a man in the Philippines became the first to die of the virus outside China.

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2020-02-03 21:38:26Z
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