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For several weeks, the coronavirus has been a source of concern on several continents. This virus, apparently born in the heart of a seafood market in Wuhan, in central China, has already killed 81 people there, and 2,744 cases have been identified throughout the country.
40,000 people may have been infected
Since Thursday, the city of Wuhan and its surroundings (gathering 56 million people) have been placed in quarantine to limit the spread of the virus and contain the epidemic, but five cases have been confirmed in the United States and three in France. “We need to prepare for the fact that this particular epidemic is becoming a global epidemic,” said Gabriel Leung, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), who fears that at least 40,000 people around the world have already been infected. .
Given the speed with which the virus circulates from one continent to another and to intervene early, it is essential to know the symptoms of the coronavirus.
Signs that can alert
The 2019-nCoV virus, which causes the disease, is transmitted between humans by air like the flu: an infected patient contaminates the ambient air inhaled by people around him by talking, coughing or sneezing. The virus can also be transmitted through physical contact such as a simple handshake, or the exchange of an object. Note that one person can infect another without even knowing that he is sick.
The symptoms, described by researchers in the scientific journal The Lancet , are as follows: fever above 38.1 ° C (observed in 98% of cases), body aches, chills, coughing fits (listed in 76 % of cases), headache, intense fatigue (observed in 44% of patients), diarrhea or even breathing difficulties in the most severe cases (55% of affected patients). Doctors observed bilateral nodules in the lungs of confirmed patients, as well as fluid compressing certain areas of the lung tissue.
Very similar to flu symptoms, these manifestations are to be taken very seriously if you are returning from China, if you have been in contact with people returning from this country or if you have flown recently.
What to do in case of symptoms of coronavirus?
If this is the case, or if in doubt, do not go to the emergency room, call the Samu at 15 and describe your symptoms. “ It is important to monitor yourself and at the slightest sign of breathing, or if you have a fever, you should not go to the emergency room, you should not call a doctor, you must call center 15, which picks up people at home, takes them to hospital, which allows us to put people in solitary confinement, to do the tests, explained the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn. If the tests are positive, they are kept under surveillance. If the tests are negative, they come out. ”
The importance of getting the flu shot
The symptoms of the coronavirus being very similar to those of the flu, the French emergency doctor Gérald Kierzek, recommends getting vaccinated against the latter in order to facilitate sorting: “If people who are vaccinated against the flu have symptoms that closer to those of the flu, we will know that it may be something else. This will allow us to do what is called differential diagnosis. ”
He is nevertheless surprised “that we panic as much for 80 deaths from Coronavirus while 10 to 15,000 people die each year from the flu.”
