The number of recovered patients is rising continuously, reaching 904, a senior physician at the infectology department of the South Pest Central Hospital said at the Saturday online press conference of the Operational Group responsible for the containment of the coronavirus epidemic.
János Szlávik said patients displaying mild symptoms typically take 1 to 2 weeks to recover. At the same time, those who need to be hospitalised with severe symptoms could spend up to 3 to 4 weeks, or even longer in hospital.
He repeated that an infected person can start infecting others already 1 to 2 days before displaying symptoms, and the probability of transmission is the highest for 5 to 6 days from the appearance of symptoms.
The physician said there is still a great deal they do not know about the novel coronavirus. They do not know where it comes from, how it spread to humans, there is no precise information regarding its human-to-human transmission, and the date of the availability of a vaccine remains uncertain.
Mr Szlávik said it is presumed that the virus spread to humans from bats via a so-called ‘intermediate host’ animal. He observed that bats are even capable of carrying the pathogen of Ebola or rabies without developing the disease.
He highlighted that the virus may have been transmitted to humans through mutation, infecting four million people worldwide. It is evident that it spreads via droplet infection; however, researchers are finding the virus in ever more bodily fluids.
The expert said they are not yet fully aware of the precise mechanisms of the virus, but they now know that an infected person can start infecting others already 1 to 2 days before displaying symptoms, and the probability of transmission is the highest for 5 to 6 days after the initial emergence of symptoms.
They likewise do not know, he said, whether those who recovered from the infection could continue to infect others for days or weeks even if their tests prove to be negative.
According to Mr Szlávik, it is also unclear who becomes seriously ill, why it is that some undergo the infection with severe symptoms, while others only display mild ones, or which immune mechanisms could be responsible for causing a severe progression of the disease in a healthy young person.
The senior physician said the date of the availability of a vaccine against the coronavirus remains uncertain. Some say it could be available by this autumn or winter, while others envisage the wider availability of a vaccine for next spring.
It may well be that the vaccine has already been developed, he indicated; however, it takes a very long time before it can be used safely.
Mr Szlávik recalled that it was forty years ago, on 8 May 1980 that the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eradicated. The pathogen caused the deaths of 300 million people. The last patient, a man from Somalia, was registered in 1977; he recovered from the disease. Since then, the virus of smallpox has been stored in two super safe laboratories.
He said he would like to see the coronavirus only present in storage in laboratories in the near future.
(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister / MTI)
