Health Alerts

An emergency meeting convened under the IHR will take place today (Jan 22) to decide if the 2019-nCoV outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and to decide the measures needed to control it – a virtual press conference will then be streamed through the agency’s facebook and twitter accounts at 19:00 hours (Geneva time). Details of the virus, transmission and new cases are emerging every day – an update was communicated in the Jan 20 WHO sitrep but since then a case has been identified in both Taiwan and the USA; also infections in 15 healthcare workers in Wuhan indicate some human-to-human transmission. Live updates of the case count (in Chinese) can be found here.’ A leading medical research centre in the US, the NIH, is said to be in the very early stages of developing a vaccine against 2019-nCoV. DFAT’s Smartraveller website offers the following advice: ‘exercise a high degree of caution if you are travelling to Wuhan. If you are in Wuhan avoid live animal (or ‘wet’) markets, contact with living or dead animals, and contact with sick people’ and seek medical attention promptly if respiratory symptoms develop within two weeks of travel; advise the doctor of recent travel history. The US CDC has issued a Level 2, Practice enhanced precautions travel alert for travel to China and a HAN Update and Interim Guidance (on Jan 17). Afludiary, a Flutrackers discussion thread and virologydownunder.com offer updates on the evolving situation. Read more.