The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has doubled from four to eight after four more people in Brighton were diagnosed with the infection over the weekend.
The four were transferred from Brighton to London over the weekend in order to receive specialist care.
Crucially, one of the four had been at the same ski resort near Chamonix in France visited by the patient from Brighton who was moved from the city to the isolation unit at St Thomas’ hospital in central London last Thursday after they were diagnosed with coronavirus.
The gender of the four new cases, and whether they are adults or children, is not known.
St Thomas’ is one of the NHS’s network of specialist high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) treatment centres in England.
One of the other four confirmed cases is being treated at the HCID unit at the Royal Free hospital in north London and the two Chinese nationals who tested positive for Coronavirus in York are being treated at the HCID centre in Newcastle.
NHS England and the Department of Health have been contacted for comment.
The development came as the UK government declared the coronavirus outbreak a serious and imminent threat to public health, a step that gives authorities additional powers to fight the spread of the disease.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Monday: “The incidence of transmission of novel coronavirus constitutes a serious and imminent threat to public health.”
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Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral and Kents Hill Park conference centre in Milton Keynes have been designated official “isolation” facilities and Wuhan and Hubei province in China as an “infected area”.
Under the measures announced on Monday, the Department of Health said people with coronavirus could now be forcibly quarantined and would not be free to leave, and could be forcibly sent into isolation if they posed a threat to public health.
A spokesman said: “Our infection control procedures are world-leading and the NHS is well prepared to deal with the novel coronavirus.
“We are strengthening our regulations so we can keep individuals in supported isolation for their own safety and if public health professionals consider they may be at risk of spreading the virus to other members of the public.
“This measure will rightly make it easier for health professionals to help keep people safe across the country.”
The new designation by the Department of Health follows reports that a British man who caught coronavirus at a business conference in Singapore is linked to at least seven other confirmed cases in England, France and Spain.
The middle-aged man visited a ski chalet in the Alpine resort area near Mont Blanc before returning to the UK on an EasyJet flight to Gatwick airport from Geneva on 28 January.
He was diagnosed with the virus in Brighton and was transferred on Thursday to St Thomas’s hospital in London, where there is an infectious diseases unit.
An EasyJet spokeswoman said: “EasyJet has been notified by the public health authority that a customer who had recently travelled on one of its flights has since been diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Public Health England is contacting all passengers who were seated in the vicinity of the customer on flight EZS8481 from Geneva to London Gatwick on 28 January to provide guidance in line with procedures.
“As the customer was not experiencing any symptoms, the risk to others on board the flight is very low. We remain in contact with the public health authorities and are following their guidance. The health and well-being of our passengers and crew is the airline’s highest priority.”
Following the confirmation of the fourth UK case on Sunday, Prof Paul Hunter, professor in medicine, University of East Anglia, said: “From today’s reports, this new case would appear to be linked to the cluster of cases in the French ski resort, which is also linked to the case in Brighton.
“As such, this case is part of the same cluster which is being reported as linked to a British national returning from Singapore.
“Whilst we currently do not know many details about how this new case was linked to others in the cluster, his/her identification does not at this stage indicate wider spread within the UK community.
“If the new individual had been already identified through contact tracing and the person was self-isolating then this should not pose any additional risk.”
As of 2 pm on Sunday, the Department of Health said 795 tests had been concluded in the UK, with four testing positive and 791 confirmed negative. British nationals who have been flown back from Wuhan were being quarantined for 14 days.
The second and final flight carrying British citizens from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan landed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire shortly before 7.30 am on Sunday.
The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the flight had brought back 105 British nationals and family members, as well as 95 foreign nationals and family members.
Thirteen staff and medical professionals were also onboard. The passengers were taken to the Kents Hill Park hotel and conference centre in Milton Keynes to be quarantined.
The death toll in China from the coronavirus stands at more than 900, surpassing the number of fatalities from the Sars virus in the 2002-03 outbreak.
China’s foreign ministry said 27 foreigners in the country had been confirmed infected with the new coronavirus as of Monday morning, two of whom had died.
An American died on 6 February and a Japanese man died on 8 February, a foreign ministry spokesman told a daily news briefing in Beijing.
The Guardian, UK
