A research team from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) recently published online a study on the transmission characteristics of the virus in more than 20,000 families infected with the disease in Wuhan, Hubei province. The study shows that the most likely to be infected with the CCP virus are 60-year-old people, and the infection rate of infants is higher than that of children, but children and young people are more likely to spread the virus than older people.
On January 18, the international medical journal “Lancet infectious disease” published an epidemiological study by a research team from Huazhong University of Science and Technology on the spread of the CCP virus in households in Wuhan.
By studying more than 27,000 infected households in Wuhan, it was found that infants and adolescents were more susceptible to transmission of the CCP virus than older adults.
The study included families with laboratory and clinically confirmed cases and asymptomatic infected individuals reported in Wuhan between December 2, 2019 and April 18, 2020, involving 29,578 patients with first-generation infection and 57,581 close contacts in 27,101 families.
The study showed that the average incubation period of the virus was 5 days, the maximum infectious period was 22 days, and the incidence rate of the second generation was 15.6%.
Compared to other age groups, the risk of infection was highest in the elderly population over 60 years of age. Infants aged 0 to 1 year were in turn more infected than children aged 2 to 5 years, 2.2 times more infected than the latter; and 1.53 times more infected than children aged 6 to 12 years.
The study showed that when exposure times were the same, patients in children and adolescents under 20 years of age were 1.58 times more likely to infect others than those aged 60 years and older.
The study also found that asymptomatic patients were much less able to infect others than confirmed cases, 0.21 times more likely than the latter, while confirmed cases with symptoms were more likely to transmit before the onset of the disease (incubation period) than after, 1.42 times more likely than the latter.
The study recommends that eligible children and young people should be vaccinated promptly when vaccine resources allow, because of the greater transmission of cases in young people.
Earlier, Reuters reported that Mike Ryan, executive director of the World health Organization’s (WHO) public health emergency program, said at a social media event, “The Epidemic is going into its second year, and given the pattern of transmission of the virus, and some of the problems we’re seeing, the situation could be even more dire in year 2.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) updated its outbreak report on the 19th announcing that the British variant of the CCP virus is now present in at least 60 countries, 10 more than last week. The WHO also updated that the South African variant, which is considered more infectious as well as the British variant, has been reported in 23 countries or territories.
AFP reports that the global death toll from the epidemic has surpassed 2 million, plus the emergence of new strains of more infectious Variant viruses, making governments more anxious, before widespread access to vaccines, countries around the world are facing the challenge of how to slow the spread of the virus.
Recent Comments