Doctors warn coronavirus could spread through bacteria in diarrhoea as medics told to protect their eyes
THE coronavirus could spread through bacteria in diarrhoea, new research has found.
It comes as medical experts have warned the virus can spread through the eyes and people – especially doctors – should do more to protect themselves.
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So far 724 people have died and nearly 35,000 people have died after the disease broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
The primary path for coronavirus transmission is believed to be virus-laden droplets from an infected person’s cough.
But researchers say early studies focused heavily on patients with respiratory symptoms and may have overlooked those linked to the digestive tract.
A total of 14 out of 138 patients in a Wuhan hospital initially presented with diarrhoea and nausea one or two days prior to development of fever and laboured breathing.
The first US patient diagnosed also experienced loose bowel movements for two days and the virus was subsequently detected in his stool, and there have been other documented cases in China.
The new research was undertaken by Chinese authors and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
William Keevil, a professor of environmental healthcare at the University of Southampton, said reports on the virus when it first appeared suggested a “faecal transmission route”.
Faecal transmission of SARS was implicated in sickening hundreds in Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens housing estate in 2003.
The possibility of the same being the case with the coronavirus is not totally surprising to scientists, given that the new virus belongs to the same family as SARS.
Benjamin Neuman, a virology expert at Texas A&M University-Texarkana said faecal transmission was “certainly worth considering”.
But he said “droplets and touching contaminated surfaces then rubbing eyes, nose or mouth” were likely the main way the virus was transmitted based on current data.
Meanwhile a report in The Lancet says Chinese pneumonia expert Guangfa Wang was infected by the coronavirus while visiting Wuhan last month.
He wore a face mask during his visit, but did not wear any protective eyewear and later complained of “redness of the eyes”.
“Unprotected exposure of the eyes in the Wuhan Fever Clinic might have allowed the virus to infect the body.”
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The report noted that SARS – another type of coronavirus – also spread via the “mucous membranes in the eyes, mouth or nose”.
It says doctors, some of whom have been working exhausting hours to battle the disease, should protect themselves.
“All ophthalmologists examining suspected cases should wear protective eyewear,” it said.
- A version of this story appeared in news.com.au