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Coronavirus pandemic
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

Asian health officials fear Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is larger than China’s letting on

  • As the number of people infected on the mainland leapt from 41 to more than 300 this week, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have all reported cases
  • The surge has raised concerns over Beijing’s transparency and rekindled mistrust generated during the deadly 2003 Sars outbreak

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Medical staff transfer patients to a hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, on January 17. Photo: Getty Images
Meaghan Tobin
Health authorities across Asia are concerned the outbreak of the mysterious new coronavirus is larger than Chinese authorities have stated, amid a surge in the number of people infected in mainland China and as three other countries in the region confirm cases.
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The number of people confirmed to have contracted the disease on the mainland jumped from 41 to more than 300 this week, with six deaths so far, while Thailand has reported two cases and Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have reported one case each of the virus – which is in the same family as the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) viruses.
“It is hard to believe [the official number of] cases, but there are all these cases popping up in so many neighbouring countries,” said Piotr Chlebicki, an infectious disease expert at Mount Alvernia Hospital in Singapore who worked on the nation’s Sars epidemic. “China has a track record of under-reporting cases, so the true picture may be completely different.”

International public health experts are concerned Chinese officials have not been fast enough to share information about the virus, instead requiring multiple bureaucratic steps before a case can be confirmed.

These procedures were put in place in response to the 2003 Sars outbreak, when China garnered international mistrust for initially covering up the full extent of the disease, which killed nearly 800 people and sickened more than 8,000 worldwide.

Asian countries are bracing for a daily influx of thousands of Chinese travellers during the Lunar New Year holiday, with markets in the region potentially in for a hit as consumers are seen as being more likely to stay home than spend during the scare.

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