JAKARTA - A number of scientists in China say the spread of the corona virus or COVID-19 is more like influenza than other related viruses. This also makes the virus easy to spread and has killed thousands of people around the world.
The theory was obtained when scientists studied the nose and throat swabs of 18 patients infected with the coronavirus. In one case, the corona virus persisted even though the patient did not show symptoms of being infected. Even asymptomatic patients can spread the virus.
The results of the investigation published on Wednesday, February 19, in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide new evidence that COVID-19, which has killed more than 2,000 people, is not linked to a similar coronavirus.
"If confirmed, this is very important," said a virologist and vaccine researcher from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Gregory Poland, who was not involved in the study.
Unlike Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which causes infection deep in the lower respiratory tract that can lead to pneumonia, COVID-19 inhabits the upper and lower respiratory tract. This makes the virus capable of not only causing severe pneumonia, but spreading as easily as the flu or the common cold.
Researchers in Guangdong Province monitored the number of coronavirus in 18 patients. One of them, who had a moderate level of virus in his nose and throat, never had any symptoms.
Among the 17 patients who had these symptoms, the team found levels of the virus increased rapidly after symptoms first appeared. The amount of the virus is higher in the nose than in the throat. Hence, this pattern is more similar to influenza than SARS. Other symptoms even show symptoms of fever.
"That being said, it's clear this virus can be expelled from the upper respiratory tract and people shed it without symptoms," said Poland.
"These findings add to the evidence that COVID-19 does not have symptoms like SARS," said Kristian Anderson, an immunologist at Scripps Research La Jolla. He's using a gene sequencing tool to track outbreaks of this disease.
"COVID-19, is much easier to spread between humans than any other type of coronavirus we've seen. This is more similar to the spread of flu," said Anderson, who was not involved with the study.
The researchers said their findings add to reports that the virus can be transmitted early in the course of infection and suggest that control of COVID-19 is carried out differently from SARS, especially in dealing with the spread of the new coronavirus in hospitals.
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