Second study shows 2019-nCoV closely related to bat-derived SARS-like coronaviruses, with 88 percent identity
MONDAY, Feb. 3, 2020 (HealthDay News) — In a descriptive study published online Jan. 29 in The Lancet, clinical characteristics are presented for the first 99 patients with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
Nanshan Chen, M.D., from the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital in China, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study including all 99 confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV (67 men) in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital from Jan. 1 to Jan. 20, 2020. The researchers found that 49 percent of the patients had a history of exposure to the Huanan seafood market. Fifty-one percent of the patients had chronic diseases. Clinical manifestations of fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle ache, confusion, headache, sore throat, rhinorrhea, chest pain, diarrhea, and nausea and vomiting were reported (83, 82, 31, 11, 9, 8, 5, 4, 2, 2, and 1 percent, respectively). Seventy-five percent of the patients showed bilateral pneumonia based on imaging examination. Seventeen of the patients developed acute respiratory distress syndrome; 11 of these patients died from multiple organ failure.
In a second study, Roujian Lu, from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, and colleagues conducted next-generation sequencing of samples from nine inpatients with 2019-nCoV. The researchers found that the 10 genome sequences of 2019-nCoV obtained from the patients were extremely similar, with more than 99.98 percent sequence identity. 2019-nCoV was closely related to two bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndrome-like coronaviruses with 88 percent identity.
“The infection of 2019-nCoV was of clustering onset, is more likely to infect older men with comorbidities, and can result in severe and even fatal respiratory diseases such as acute respiratory distress syndrome,” Chen and colleagues write.
Abstract/Full Text – Chen
Abstract/Full Text – Lu
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