This article was first published on the 22nd of January 2020 by Patrick Carpen.
Last updated: January 22, 2020 at 22:40 pm
The Minas Gerais State Department of Health (SES-MG) investigates a suspected case of coronavirus in Belo Horizonte. This is a 35-year-old woman who was in Shanghai, China, and arrived in the capital of Minas Gerais on Saturday 18, “with respiratory symptoms, compatible with acute viral respiratory disease.”
“In view of the current epidemiological context of the country where the patient was, the hypothesis of a disease caused by the new Coronavirus, which is an international health alert microorganism, was considered,” informed SES-MG, in a note. The patient is admitted to the Eduardo de Menezes Hospital, in the Barreiro Region, and is clinically stable. The case is still under investigation.
In a note, the Ministry of Health denied that a case of coronavirus was detected in Minas Gerais. “There is no detection of any suspicious cases in Brazil of Indeterminate Pneumonia related to the event in China,” said the Ministry of Health. “The case reported by the State Health Secretariat of Minas Gerais does not fit the definition of a suspected case by the World Health Organization Health (WHO), considering that the patient was in Shanghai, where there is, until now, no active transmission of the virus,” explained the federal agency.
According to the ministry, the WHO determined that “there is only active transmission of the virus in Wuhan province,” where the outbreak would have started. Shanghai is about 840 kilometers from Wuhan.
In China, the number of deaths from an outbreak of a variant of the virus rose to seventeen, the country’s state television reported on Wednesday. The last balance recorded nine deaths. The official number of infected was 444.
World Health Organization experts will meet this Wednesday to decide whether the outbreak will be considered a “public health emergency of international interest.”
On Tuesday 21, a man was diagnosed with the disease in Washington, the capital of the United States. Cases of the virus have also been reported in South Korea, Thailand and Japan. There are also suspected cases in the Philippines, Australia and Mexico. Within China, the first contagion in Hong Kong has also been confirmed.
There is a possibility that the virus could cause a pandemic. The governments of several countries, which hope to receive thousands of Chinese in the coming days because of the Lunar New Year holiday, have started to prepare their airports and increase their inspection, looking for symptoms such as fever and cough.
Read Original Story in Portuguese: Minas Gerais Tem Premeiro Caso Suspeito de Coronavirus no Brasil.
