Following the outbreak of a deadly disease named Coronavirus which has killed over 565 people and thousands infected, a 30-hour-old baby has become the youngest coronavirus case since its outbreak.
This was disclosed after a medical test conducted on the baby who was born on February 2 in Wuhan tested positive to the virus.
This has led to speculation that the lethal illness could potentially be passed from a mother to a fetus as the baby’s mother tested positive to the virus before giving birth.
It was learnt that the baby weighed 3.25kg at birth (7lbs 2oz) and is now in a stable condition and under observation.
Reacting to the development, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Dr. Peter Hotez who also developed a vaccine for Sars (another coronavirus which spread in China in 2003), said there is more to know about the virus.
He said; “We’re still in the deep learning curve about this virus. There’s more we don’t know than we do know about the new coronavirus.
“We know it happens for instance in HIV-Aids, but even there in the pre-retroviral drug era when I was taking care of infants with Aids, even in untreated mothers it was still only about 25% [of cases]”.
Chief physician of Wuhan Children Hospital’s neonatal medicine department, Zeng Lingkong, told Reuters;
“This reminds us to pay attention to mother-to-child being a possible route of coronavirus transmission.”
