Recent Guidance from Public health England reports that “On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. On 9 January 2020, WHO announced that a novel coronavirus had been detected in patient samples in Wuhan. On 12 January 2020 it was announced that a novel coronavirus had been identified in samples obtained from cases and that initial analysis of virus genetic sequences suggested that this was the cause of the outbreak. This virus is now referred to as 2019-nCoV, and the associated disease as ‘2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease”. On 30 January 2020, the WHO Emergency Committee agreed that the outbreak now meets the criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease has been classified as an airborne high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and death. Standard recommendations to prevent infection spread include regular hand washing, covering your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs and avoiding close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.
What does this mean for Healthcare professionals?
The situation changes daily and practices are advised to stay up to date with developments on Public Health England’s website at https://bit.ly/2On49hy.
If you need advice on keeping your practice policies and procedures up to date in light of the outbreak, please do not hesitate to contact our Head of Regulatory Neil Smart.
