A healthcare worker at Worthing hospital is among the eight confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
Staff at the West Sussex hospital received a memo on Tuesday telling them a member of staff working in the A&E department had been diagnosed with the disease.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said that all services at the hospital, including surgery and outpatients, are operating normally. The eight cases also include another healthcare worker, a locum doctor working in Brighton.
On Tuesday evening, the POA, formerly the Prison Officers’ Association, said it had been briefed that three people had been taken ill at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire with suspected coronavirus.
The association’s general secretary, Steve Gillan, said the wing on which the three were being held had been put on lockdown and that one man, who had previously been held in the Thai prison system, had been taken to a hospital offsite for tests. The other two were being held in isolation within the prison.
No test results have been returned, but Gillan expressed concern about the welfare of prison officers should cases of the virus be confirmed, saying they needed to be given proper protection.
The statement came after a businessman who inadvertently infected at least 11 people with coronavirus identified himself in a statement from hospital in which he said his thoughts were with others who had contracted the potentially fatal illness.
Steve Walsh, 53, who is in an isolation unit at St Thomas’ hospital in London, which has a specialist infectious disease centre, said he had fully recovered.
Walsh unknowingly contracted the disease at a sales conference in Singapore between 20 and 22 January and then went on a ski trip to the French Alps before returning home. Coronavirus has a two-week incubation period.
The World Health Organization is recommending that people take simple precautions to reduce exposure to and transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus, for which there is no specific cure or vaccine.
The UN agency advises people to:
- Frequently wash their hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or warm water and soap
- Cover their mouth and nose with a flexed elbow or tissue when sneezing or coughing
- Avoid close contact with anyone who has a fever or cough
- Seek early medical help if they have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, and share their travel history with healthcare providers
- Avoid direct, unprotected contact with live animals and surfaces in contact with animals when visiting live markets in affected areas
- Avoid eating raw or undercooked animal products and exercise care when handling raw meat, milk or animal organs to avoid cross-contamination with uncooked foods.
Despite a surge in sales of face masks in the aftermath of the outbreak of the coronavirus outbreak, experts are divided over whether they can prevent transmission and infection. There is some evidence to suggest that masks can help prevent hand-to-mouth transmissions, given the large number of times people touch their faces. The consensus appears to be that wearing a mask can limit – but not eliminate – the risks, provided they are used correctly.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised UK nationals to leave China where possible. It is also warning that travellers from Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand who develop symptoms of cough or fever or shortness of breath within 14 days of returning the UK should contact the NHS by phone.
He is believed to have transmitted the virus to several people in France. Public Health England (PHE) said on Monday that four people in Brighton linked to him had tested positive. As a result, the city has become the centre of the crisis in the UK, with five of the eight cases identified across the country there.
Walsh said: “I would like to thank the NHS for their help and care – whilst I have fully recovered, my thoughts are with others who have contracted coronavirus. As soon as I knew I had been exposed to a confirmed case of coronavirus I contacted my GP, NHS 111 and Public Health England.
“I was advised to attend an isolated room at hospital, despite showing no symptoms, and subsequently self-isolated at home as instructed. When the diagnosis was confirmed I was sent to an isolation unit in hospital, where I remain, and, as a precaution, my family was also asked to isolate themselves.”
He thanked friends, family and colleagues for their support and asked the media to respect their privacy.
Walsh spoke as the World Health Organization called for people not to face blame where the virus had transferred from them to others. Dr Michael Ryan, the executive director at WHO’s health emergencies programme, said it was “deeply, deeply unhelpful” to single out sufferers as culpable in some fashion.
He told a press conference on Tuesday: “I really wish we could refrain from personalising these issues down to individuals who spread disease.”
When asked about Walsh, Ryan said it was important to learn from individual cases, but that WHO’s overall risk assessment had not changed.
“This is by no means, compared to other events, a massive ‘super-spreading’ event. This is an unusual event and it is a wake-up call because there may be other circumstances in which this disease can spread like this, so we need to study those circumstances for sure but it doesn’t change our overall assessment.
“People are not at fault – they are never at fault in this situation, so let’s be extremely careful here, it’s really, really important that we don’t attach unnecessary stigma to this.”
Walsh is thought to be a so-called super-spreader – someone who transmits infections to far more people than the majority do. He was transferred to St Thomas’ hospital from Brighton on Thursday.
The company he works for, Servomex, said: “We are very pleased that Steve Walsh has made a full recovery. We continue to provide support to him and his family. We are working with public health authorities to ensure the welfare of our staff and communities and wish anyone with the virus a quick and full recovery.”
Walsh’s statement came as it emerged a second GP surgery in Brighton had shut after the outbreak of coronavirus in the city.
On Monday, the County Oak medical centre closed because of an “urgent operational health and safety reason”, after a member of staff contracted the virus.
On Tuesday morning, it emerged that a second branch of the same practice, less than two miles away, had also closed.
What is the virus causing the illness that started Wuhan?
The virus is officially called Sars-CoV-2 and this causes the disease Covid-19. It is a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. Many of those initially infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the centre of the Chinese city.
What other coronaviruses have there been?
New and troubling viruses usually originate in animal hosts. Ebola and flu are other examples – severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals.
What are the symptoms of the coronavirus?
The virus can cause pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. If people are admitted to hospital, they may get support for their lungs and other organs as well as fluids. Recovery will depend on the strength of their immune system. Many of those who have died were already in poor health.
Is the virus being transmitted from one person to another?
China’s national health commission has confirmed human-to-human transmission, and there have been such transmissions elsewhere. As of 12 February there are now 45,182 confirmed cases and 1,115 deaths. There are cases in 28 other countries outside China, with deaths recorded in one case in Hong Kong, and one case in the Philippines. The number of people to have contracted the virus overall could be far higher, as people with mild symptoms may not have been detected.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has doubled from four to eight after four more people in Brighton were diagnosed with the infection over the weekend.
There are nine cases of the virus in the UK. Four were located in Brighton, one in London. At Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside 83 people in quarantine were told they would be allowed to leave on Thursday after they all tested negative. Of the 1,750 tests carried out so far in the UK, more than 99% had been negative.
Why is this worse than normal influenza, and how worried are the experts?
We don’t yet know how dangerous the new coronavirus is, and we won’t know until more data comes in. The mortality rate is around 2%. However, this is likely to be an overestimate since many more people are likely to have been infected by the virus but not suffered severe enough symptoms to attend hospital, and so have not been counted. For comparison, seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate below 1% and is thought to cause about 400,000 deaths each year globally. Sars had a death rate of more than 10%.
Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough?
Unless you have recently travelled to China or been in contact with someone infected with the virus, then you should treat any cough or cold symptoms as normal. The NHS advises that people should call 111 instead of visiting the GP’s surgery as there is a risk they may infect others.
Is this a pandemic and should we panic?
Health experts are starting to say it could become a pandemic, but right now it falls short of what the WHO would consider to be one. A pandemic, in WHO terms, is “the worldwide spread of a disease”. Coronavirus cases have been confirmed in about 25 countries outside China, but by no means in all 195 on the WHO’s list.
There is no need to panic. The spread of the virus outside China is worrying but not an unexpected development. The WHO has declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern, and says there is a “window of opportunity” to halt the spread of the disease. The key issues are how transmissible this new coronavirus is between people and what proportion become severely ill and end up in hospital. Often viruses that spread easily tend to have a milder impact.
Sarah Boseley Health editor and Hannah Devlin
A sign fixed to the door of the Deneway branch read: “The surgery is closed due to organisational health and safety reasons. Please contact 111 if you need to speak to a health professional.”
PHE said it was working to identify healthcare staff and patients who had been in contact with the two infected healthcare workers, as well as people who had close and sustained contact with other people confirmed to have the virus.
PHE has been contacting passengers who sat near Walsh during his journey home on 28 January, on flight EZS8481 from Geneva to Gatwick.
The Brighton Evening Argus reported on Tuesday that two nurses at a local hospital were being quarantined after treating a new patient suspected of contracting the coronavirus. The paper said the patient was understood to have recently arrived from Hong Kong.
