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Nosocomial Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia in Wuhan, China.
Eur Respir J. 2020 May 04;:
Authors: Wang X, Zhou Q, He Y, Liu L, Ma X, Wei X, Jiang N, Liang L, Zheng Y, Ma L, Xu Y, Yang D, Zhang J, Yang B, Jiang N, Deng T, Zhai B, Gao Y, Liu W, Bai X, Pan T, Wang G, Chang Y, Zhang Z, Shi H, Ma WL, Gao Z
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infected over 3300 health-care-workers (HCWs) in early 2020 in China. Little information is known about nosocomial infections of HCWs in the initial period. We analysed data from HCWs with nosocomial infections in Wuhan Union Hospital and their family members.
METHODS: We collected and analysed data on exposure history, illness timelines, and epidemiologic characteristics of 25 laboratory-confirmed and two highly suspected HCWs as well as ten of their family members with COVID-19 from Jan 5 to Feb 12, 2020. Among them, demographics and clinical features of the 35 laboratory-confirmed cases were investigated and viral RNA of 12 cases was sequenced and analysed.
RESULTS: Nine clusters were found among the patients. All patients showed mild to moderate clinical manifestation and recovered without deterioration. The average periods of incubation, clinical onset serial interval (COSI), and virus shedding were 4.5 days, 5.2±3.2 days, and 18.5 days, respectively. Complete genomic sequences of 12 different coronavirus strains demonstrated that the viral structure with small, irrelevant mutations was stable in the transmission chains and showed remarkable traits of infectious traceability.
CONCLUSIONS: SARS-CoV-2 can be rapidly transmitted person-to-person regardless of whether they have symptoms in both hospital settings and social activities based on the short period of incubation and COSI. The public health service should take practical measures to curb the spread, including isolation of cases, tracing close-contacts, and containment of severe epidemic areas. Besides, the HCWs should be alert during the epidemic, and make self-quarantine if self-suspected.
PMID: 32366488 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]