Production: Pablo Cantudo
* Update: The first case of Wuhan coronavirus in Spain is confirmed: a German patient who is isolated in a hospital on La Gomera, in the Canary Islands.
The WHO declared a state of health emergency on January 30.
In this map you can poll the incidence in real time.
Coronaviruses are a group of common viruses that are named for their appearance under the microscope : they have proteins on their surface in the form of tips that resemble a corona.
Coronaviruses can affect humans and other animals. They usually cause mild respiratory ailments, such as the common cold; but also something more serious, such as bronchitis or pneumonia.
The coronavirus we are referring to is a new type that was first detected in December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and that is why it is known as Wuhan coronavirus or new coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
According to the WHO, there are indications that it all started with human-animal contact in a fish and seafood market in the city of Wuhan.
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted by coughing and sneezing or, just like a conventional flu.
What are the symptoms?
Mainly fever, cough, and shortness of breath. In more severe cases, the infection can cause pneumonia, acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure … and, yes, even death. There are already more than 100 confirmed deaths from the virus.
Mortality can reach 30%, but it is not easy to kill a healthy adult. As with other conditions, the most vulnerable people are multipathological patients, that is, people who already have some type of respiratory disease. In addition, children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with depressed immune systems would also be the population at risk of serious complications.
If you are afraid of the Wuhan coronavirus, you should, even more so, fear contracting the life-long, seasonal flu caused by the influenza virus.
Each year there are about a billion cases, of which between 290,000 and 650,000 are fatal. However, if there are no complications, the flu passes in a week or two with a mild development.
The flu or influenza virus has caused severe epidemics in the past.
A well-known case was the Spanish flu , from 1918/1919: 500 million people were affected and around 25 to 40 million people died of Spanish flu, mainly young people between 20 and 30 years old, and mostly women.
The Asian flu from 1957 to 1958, caused 1.5 million fatal cases.
And much more recent (from 2009), and much more irrelevant, was the famous influenza A, much milder: it claimed 18,000 deaths worldwide; influenza A was officially declared extinct by the WHO in 2010. Despite causing far fewer deaths, social alarm was very high.
Conclution
In principle, we should not be afraid of the Wuhan coronavirus. To be sure, we must take into account the recommendations of the specialists.
Dr. Carmen Jódar Casanova, specialist in Family Medicine and founder of the blog mimedicoonline.es, recommends eliminating the risk of spread or contagion by sneezing or coughing into disposable tissues or, failing that, on the sleeve of clothing that we will later to wash. In addition, hand washing is essential to prevent contagion , just like in the flu.
Is scaremongering justified? Now that you have the data, judge for yourself.
