61-Year-Old Patient Is First to Die in Wuhan Pneumonia Outbreak
61-Year-Old Patient Is First to Die in Wuhan Pneumonia Outbreak
(Bloomberg) -- Doctors in central China used sophisticated life support equipment to try to save a 61-year-old man infected with the newly identified virus that caused him to develop severe pneumonia.
The patient, who died late Jan. 9, failed to improve after infection-fighting medicines, ventilator-assisted breathing, and continuous heart-lung bypass support known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, municipal health officials in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said in a statement Sunday.
It’s the first detailed, public account of a patient known to have been infected with the novel coronavirus implicated in an unusual pneumonia outbreak in the city of 11 million people.
Read More: How China’s Mystery Illness Is and Isn’t Like SARS
The patient’s immediate cause of death was respiratory circulation failure, precipitated by conditions including acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, multiple organ failure, and liver cirrhosis, officials said. The man, who suffered abdominal tumors and chronic liver disease at the time of infection, was a regular shopper at the Wuhan seafood market linked to the outbreak.
From Dec. 8 to Jan. 2, 41 people in central China are reported to have fallen ill from the virus, which is genetically similar to the coronavirus that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, 17 years ago. One case was reported Monday in Thailand -- a Chinese national who traveled on Jan. 8 to Bangkok, where she was subsequently hospitalized and since recovered.
Other Countries
“The possibility of cases being identified in other countries was not unexpected,” the World Health Organization said in a statement Monday, adding that further investigation is needed to “identify the source of this outbreak and any animal reservoirs or intermediate hosts.”
The wholesale seafood market in Wuhan linked to the outbreak also sold live animals and meat from wildlife. That had prompted concern that an infectious respiratory pathogen from animals had emerged, potentially setting off a deadly contagion reminiscent of SARS.
Unlike SARS, which killed almost 800 people, the new virus doesn’t appear to spread easily between people, and it hasn’t been reported to cause infections among health workers or close contacts. Symptoms include fever and fatigue, accompanied by dry cough and difficulty breathing, officials in Wuhan said.
Given recent developments, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will consult with members of the agency’s emergency committee, and may call for a meeting of the committee on short notice, the Geneva-based organization said. The panel evaluates and determines whether an event constitutes a public health emergency of international concern and provides advice to the director-general.
The identification of the case in Thailand shows that control of a virus during an outbreak is very difficult and that tracking people associated with Wuhan and the market is critical for determining the likely spread of the virus, Matthew Frieman, a coronavirus expert and associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis Monday.
‘Vigilant Monitoring’
“I applaud the Thailand authorities for catching this case and for their vigilant monitoring of passengers coming into the country,” he said.
Thailand’s use of China’s information about the virus is a “brilliant example” of the power of advanced diagnostic technology and genomic sequencing, said James M. Wilson, a pediatrician who has helped monitor health security threats for 25 years.
“Here we have an apparent example of China and other countries in the region learning lessons and, through a combination of advanced diagnostic technology, transparency, and health diplomacy helped the region recognize and respond rapidly to a crisis,” Wilson said in an email.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Melbourne at j.gale@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Patterson at mpatterson10@bloomberg.net, ;Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Jeff Sutherland
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