Nearly 500 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed, and yesterday Heathrow Airport set up a ‘separate area’ to screen passengers arriving from affected regions.
Now, Jersey GPs and other medical professionals have been given a set of instructions about what to do if they suspect anyone of having contracted the condition. The advice includes isolating the patient ‘in a negative pressure single room’.
Medical professionals are also due to hold a meeting later this week to review the situation.
The message sent to all GPs said: ‘A concern is that any risk of spread will be amplified in the 40 days from 21 January when hundreds of millions of people will travel to see their families and friends to celebrate the Lunar New Year – with some seven million travelling overseas.
‘Currently the risk to travellers visiting wet markets in Wuhan is moderate, to visitors outside markets low and overall the risk of introduction to the EU low and of subsequent spread very low. There are no travel restrictions.
‘There is no effective treatment or vaccine and control depends on early identification, isolation, investigation, contact tracing and decontamination.’
Yesterday Dr Muscat, consultant microbiologist, confirmed in a press release that the Health Department was closely watching developments.
‘We are only some four weeks into the outbreak so information is still being gathered. However, the evidence to date shows that a direct and sometimes indirect link to Wuhan, China, is the most important risk factor for acquisition of the virus,’ he said.
‘A link could either be via someone visiting Wuhan within the last 14 days or being in contact with a known case within the last 14 days. Person-to-person spread of this respiratory virus is limited and to date there has always been a Wuhan link.
‘To help prevent the potential spread of the virus, Chinese authorities have asked that travel to and from Wuhan be limited, and Heathrow as well as the USA are screening flights that arrive from Wuhan.’
Dr Muscat added that officials from the World Health Organisation were meeting yesterday to decide whether the situation needed to be declared as a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ and mobilise more resources to deal with the outbreak.
He also confirmed that Jersey medical professionals would be meeting in the coming days to discuss the situation.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Ports of Jersey said the business was in contact with the Health Department regarding the outbreak.
