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| Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jeong Eun-kyung speaks about the coronavirus now rapidly spreading in China and other parts of Asia during a press briefing at the government complex in Seoul, Thursday. /Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
All 21 patients suspected of being infected with the China coronavirus have tested negative for the resultant pneumonia-like disease and been allowed to leave hospital, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
"We ran tests on all 21 suspected patients and all came out negative. There are no other suspected cases for the time being," KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyung said during a press briefing at government complex in Seoul, Thursday.
Separately, the patient who was confirmed to be infected is being treated in an isolation unit and her condition is improving, Jeong said.
In addition an epidemiologist from the center will be dispatched to the Korean Embassy in China to monitor conditions of Korean residents there.
The new type of coronavirus, which has already claimed 17 lives in China, may have been transmitted to people from snakes, according to a recent report. The snakes may also have caught the virus from fruit bats sold in a food market in Wuhan, the capital of China's central Hubei Province.
A new study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Virology noted that patients who became infected with the coronavirus, named 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization (WHO), were exposed to wildlife at a wholesale market, where seafood, poultry, snakes, bats and farm animals were sold.
The researchers concluded that the 2019-nCoV appears to be a virus that formed from a combination of a coronavirus found in bats and another coronavirus of unknown origin. The resulting virus had a mix or "recombination" of a viral protein that recognizes and binds to receptors on host cells, and such recognition is key to allowing it to enter host cells, which can lead to infection and disease, the report said.
The research team uncovered evidence that the 2019-nCo likely resided in a snakes before being transmitted to humans. Recombination within the viral receptor-binding protein may have allowed for cross-species transmission from snake to humans.
The health authorities said they are remaining on alert to prevent the spread of the virus during the Lunar New Year holiday that runs from Jan. 24 to 27.
Early this week, the first incidence of the virus was confirmed here, when a Chinese woman traveling from Wuhan arrived at Incheon International Airport. With the first confirmed case, international airports across the country beefed up the monitoring and checking of passengers from China for signs of the disease.
Ahead of Seollal (Lunar New Year), local authorities will also accelerate quarantine efforts to contain the virus during the four-day holiday.
Meanwhile, the KCDC said that four highly-suspected cases of the virus tested negative. The four people visited Wuhan and had symptoms of fever and sore throats.
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