About 220 French, returnees from Wuhan, the epicenter of the Coronavirus epidemic, are due to land in the Bouches-du-Rhône on Friday. They will then be taken to a holiday center in Carry-le-Rouet, where they will spend fourteen days, the potential time for incubation of the disease, in quarantine. The decryption of Professor Bruno Lina, virus specialist, in Lyon.
Is this type of medical repatriation frequent?
BRUNO LINA . With such a large number of passengers, this is completely new. There is no precedent of this magnitude in France. But none of the people on the plane have symptoms of the disease.
Can they not develop them on board?
If, hence the interest of having a specialized medical team. However, the risk of virus transmission inside the device is very low, if not zero. And for good reason, the air renewal is very important, on the order of ten to fifteen times per hour. There is therefore no stagnation, as in a closed room. In addition, viruses do not like dry air! And as the latter circulates in planes sideways, the spread is quite difficult. Clearly, if a passenger declared symptoms, it would be easy enough to isolate him to protect the others.
Psychologists will be on board. Why ?
Psychological preparation for containment is important, even if it will be done in a “pleasant” corner, as indicated by the department. You have to be able to explain its usefulness, prepare families, answer all questions. The main thing is also to have good support from returnees to the idea of self-reporting if they start to experience fever, fatigue, pain, etc. This prevents the spread of the virus.
Do you fear an acceleration of the epidemic?
Worried, no. Careful, yes. The cordon cordon which was installed in China slows down the virus and protects the outside world. Will this be enough? No one can say. The important thing will be to see if we can slow down the transmission frequency. If the number of daily cases begins to decrease, it can be said that the epidemic is under control. This is what we all hope for. There are many conference calls organized by WHO, which allow experts from around the world to share their experience and thus be better prepared. This was already the case during the 2009 epidemic (the H1N1 flu NDLR) or that of Ebola.
The virus was thought to attack severely elderly and frail patients. However, in France, the condition of the 31-year-old man worsened to the point of requiring hospitalization in intensive care. How to interpret this?
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Yes, this is an unexpected situation. In theory, he should not have been among those affected. We will have to investigate: did he have a particular piece of land? A secondary infection? Now that it has happened, you have to understand why.