Clinical features ID'd for first 2019 novel coronavirus patients

(HealthDay)—As of Jan. 2, 2020, 41 patients were admitted with laboratory-confirmed 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), all of whom had pneumonia, according to a study published online Jan. 24 in The Lancet.

Chaolin Huang, M.D., from the Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan, China, and colleagues analyzed data for patients with laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection. Epidemiological and symptom data were also obtained by direct communication with patients or families.

Forty-one patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV by Jan. 2, 2020; 30 were men and 13 had underlying diseases. The researchers found that 66 percent of the patients had been exposed to the Huanan seafood market. At the onset of illness, common symptoms included fever, cough, and myalgia or fatigue (98, 76, and 44 percent, respectively); less common symptoms included sputum production, headache, hemoptysis, and diarrhea (28, 8, 5, and 3 percent, respectively). In 55 percent of the patients, dyspnea developed (median time from illness onset, 8.0 days). Sixty-three percent of the patients had lymphopenia. All of the patients had pneumonia, with abnormal chest computed tomography findings. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, RNAemia, acute cardiac injury, and secondary infection were some of the complications observed (29, 15, 12, and 10 percent, respectively). Thirteen of the patients were admitted to an intensive care unit, and six patients died.

"Because of the pandemic potential of 2019-nCoV, careful surveillance is essential to monitor its future host adaption, viral evolution, infectivity, transmissibility, and pathogenicity," the authors write.