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China’s state media reported that doctors diagnosed coronavirus in a new born in Wuhan. Medics confirmed the infection just 30 hours after birth on 2 February. Before she gave birth, doctors had tested the mother positive of the coronavirus. However the mode of transmission from mother to baby, is not certain. The infection occurred either in the womb or after birth.
Medical experts think it could be a case where the virus transmission was in the womb. On the other hand, another possibility is the virus infecting the baby due to close contact with the mother after birth. “It’s quite possible that the baby picked it up very conventionally – by inhaling virus droplets that came from the mother coughing,” Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at the MailmanSchool of Public Health at Columbia University.
“This reminds us to pay attention to mother-to-child being a possible route of coronavirus transmission,” chief physician of Wuhan Children Hospital’s neonatal medicine department, Zeng Lingkong, told Reuters.
In Singapore, one case involves a six-month-old baby boy, among the 33 cases. The parents along with the family’s helper are positive cases and one parent is the source of the infection. The baby is in a stable condition at an isolation room at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Another case in Australia is an eight year old child from Wuhan.
Global Spread of the new Coronavirus so far
From the evidence emerging, epidemiologists observed that only a few children have come down with the virus. The epidemic has killed 723 people and infected 34598 across China as of today. Young children do not seem to be as much affected by the virus.
Coronavirus spread in China
Corona Virus Statistics. Source News.qq
“The median age of patients is between 49 and 56 years,” according to a report published on Wednesday in JAMA. “Cases in children have been rare.”
So why aren’t more children getting sick?
“My strong guess is that younger people are getting infected, but they get the relatively milder disease,” said Dr. Malik Peiris, chief virologist at the University of Hong Kong. Dr Peiris has developed a diagnostic test for the new coronavirus.
Scientists may not be seeing more infected children because “we don’t have data on the milder cases,” he further said. “If this coronavirus spreads worldwide, and spreads as widely as the seasonal flu does, probably we’ll see more,” he added.
In one report, a 10-year-old traveled to Wuhan with his family. Later when they returned to Shenzhen the disease infected the whole family. The adult family members, ranging in age from 36 to 66, developed fever, sore throat, diarrhoea and pneumonia. The child, too, showed signs of viral pneumonia in the lungs, but had no apparent outward symptoms. Some scientists reckon that coronavirus infection in children is typically much milder or asymptomatic.
“It’s certainly true that children can be either asymptomatically infected or have very mild infection,” said Dr. Raina MacIntyre. Dr MacIntyre is an epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, studying the spread of the new coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases involve only a handful of children in this outbreak, which is consistent with other similar outbreaks including SARS and MERS. Similarly, during the MERS outbreak in 2016, the World Journal of Clinical Paediatrics said the virus was rare in children, So far, scientists have not established why this is so.
The Need to Unravel the Unknowns
There are still many “unknowns’ about the new coronavirus, in spite of the spotlight on the virus worldwide. As study data among the scientific medical community are shared, scientists would be able to piece together the evidence for insights to understand more and more. Thus hopefully guide public health authorities in its global fight to contain the new coronavirus.
References:
Coronavirus: Newborn becomes youngest person diagnosed with virus. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51395655
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by Wong Mei Chan
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