Virologists say the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak could soon be declared a pandemic.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus, the scientific name 2019-nCoV, a 'public health emergency of international concern.'
However, declaring the virus a pandemic is a new level of danger as the term refers to a more global outbreak.
The coronavirus “is very, very fast, and it will almost certainly become a pandemic,” Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The New York Times on Sunday.
Here are the criteria under which a virus should be declared a pandemic:
- WHO defines a pandemic as 'the spread of a new disease around the world'.
- According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pandemic is spreading in “several countries or continents, usually affecting large numbers of people.”
- A viral outbreak can be described as a pandemic if it is 'markedly different from recently circulating strains' and if 'people have little or no immunity to it', according to UK Department of Health and Safety guidelines.
- According to the National Research University Higher School of Economics, a disease becomes a pandemic when it can infect many people over a large area, spread from person to person and cause clinical illness.
In contrast, an epidemic refers to a more localized or regional outbreak rather than a global one. This is what health agencies still consider to be the coronavirus outbreak.
The CDC says the epidemic is “an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases than is usually expected in this population in the area.”
Likewise, WHO defines an epidemic as 'the occurrence in a community or region of cases of disease, specific health-related behaviors or other health-related events that clearly exceed normal expectations'.
Thomas Frieden, the former director of the CDC, said there is “less and less chance” that the coronavirus “can be contained.”
He added: “It is therefore likely that it will spread like the flu and other viruses.”
Robert Webster, an infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press on Sunday that “it sounds and looks like it's a highly transmissible virus.”
The Chinese coronavirus has killed at least 362 people and infected more than 17,000 others in more than 24 countries since the first cases appeared in December.
All but one of the deaths were in China; on Saturday, a person in the Philippines became the first to die from the virus outside of China.
This article is published by Business Insider.
Sources: Photo: CDC
