Coronavirus : 1st suspected case of infection in Portugal
Portugal would hold its first case of coronavirus patient ? Today, Portuguese Directorate General for Health (DGS) confirmed the first suspected case of coronavirus in Portugal, with a patient under observation at the Curry Cabral Hospital in Lisbon. According to DGS, the "patient, who returned today [this Saturday] from China, where he has been in the city of Wuhan (Hubei province) for a few days, is already under observation at the Curry Cabral Hospital in Lisbon, a hospital of reference for these situations ”. The official press release from the Portuguese DGS is available by clicking here. Lisbob, the expatriate assistant in Portugal, tells you all about the global coronavirus epidemic.
Coronavirus : 1st suspected case of infection in Portugal
This Friday, it was confirmed to the newspaper Observador that the three hospitals prepared to receive patients (Hospitals Curry Cabral and Dona Estefânia, in Lisbon, and Hospital de S. João, in Porto) can receive infected people and have orders to isolate the suspected cases of infection until the results of the analyzes are known. The procedure is usual in cases of contagious infections with high degrees of dissemination.
“Once emergency is suspected, they will be sent to an isolation room and, if it is confirmed that they are suspicious, they will be sent to a specific area of hospitalization”, guarantees the specialist in infectious diseases and intensive medicine ”, explained to the Observer Carlos Lima Alves, coordinator of the infection prevention and control unit at Hospital de S. João, in Porto. The samples of the results are sent to the Ricardo Jorge Institute, in Lisbon, to be analyzed.
Here you can read the full statement of DGS :
“Regarding the outbreak of pneumonia due to new Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), starting in China, the Directorate-General for Health informs that the first suspected case of infection with a new Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is being evaluated in Portugal.
This patient, returned today from China, where he was in the city of Wuhan (Hubei province) in the last few days, is already under observation at the Curry Cabral Hospital in Lisbon, Reference Hospital for these situations. His clinical situation is stable, pending the results of ongoing laboratory tests, to update this information. ”
41 Chinese people already died of coronavirus
The coronavirus has already killed 41 in China. This Saturday there were, at 11:00 am, 1287 cases in China reported and 38 in other countries. Altogether, 1325 worldwide, a number that continues to rise. To SIC Notícias, the director of the Infectious Diseases Service at Hospital Curry Cabral, Fernando Maltez confirmed that “in fact there is a suspected case hospitalized. The patient is currently being evaluated clinically, is stable and the necessary collections are being made ”. He also clarified that the patient generated suspicion of a possible contagion with the coronavirus due to the “respiratory condition, but fundamentally it results from having come from the epicenter of the epidemic”.
"All these cases that are suspected, the first means to take is to isolate them in order to prevent contagion," he said. According to Fernando Maltez, the inpatient “is not of Portuguese nationality but has lived in Portugal for a long time”. The Director-General of Health, Graça Freitas, said this Friday morning that the SNS24 line (808 24 24 24) has already received three calls from Portuguese users who came from China, with symptoms suspected to be the coronavirus. However, these cases were nothing more than suspicions and were therefore not validated as the virus that originated in China after passing through the “medical screen”. "If the risk escalates, we will have to scale the measures", he assumed.