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Health officials in Taiwan are investigating whether a mouse bite may have been responsible for a laboratory worker testing positive for Covid, the island’s first local infection in weeks.
The authorities are scrambling to work out how the employee at Academia Sinica, the country’s top research institute, contracted the virus last month.
Thanks to largely closed borders and strict quarantines, Taiwan has stayed comparatively Covid-free, including defeating a large local outbreak this year that began with pilots.
Health officials have confirmed that the lab worker had been bitten twice by mice that had been infected with the virus. They were still trying to work out if that was the cause of the infection or if it was picked up elsewhere in the high-security facility.
As for inside the workplace, whether it is in the office or laboratory, we determined the laboratory has a higher risk. But whether the infection is from the [mouse] bite or the environment, we need to investigate further.”
The lab worker had no recent travel history and received two doses of the Moderna vaccine. The Academia Sinica lab has the second-highest bio-safety security level.
Taiwan won global praise early in the pandemic for the speed with which it sounded the alarm over the disease and managed to stamp it out locally. It has recorded more than 14,500 domestic cases and 848 deaths, the vast majority during the outbreak this year that was quashed.
The Omicron Covid variant has been found to multiply about 70 times quicker than the original and Delta versions of coronavirus in tissue samples taken from the bronchus, the main tubes from the windpipe to the lungs, in laboratory experiments that could help explain its rapid transmission.
The study, by a team from the University of Hong Kong, also found that the new variant grew 10 times slower in lung tissue, which the authors said could be an indicator of lower disease severity.
Michael Chan Chi-wai, who led the work, said the result needed to be interpreted with caution because severe disease is determined not only by how quickly the virus replicates but also by a person’s immune response and, in particular, whether the immune system goes into overdrive, causing a so-called cytokine storm.
“It is also noted that by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic,” he said. “Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from the Omicron variant is likely to be very significant.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-taiwans-pursuit-of-covid-zero-starts-to-show
The authorities are scrambling to work out how the employee at Academia Sinica, the country’s top research institute, contracted the virus last month.
Thanks to largely closed borders and strict quarantines, Taiwan has stayed comparatively Covid-free, including defeating a large local outbreak this year that began with pilots.
Health officials have confirmed that the lab worker had been bitten twice by mice that had been infected with the virus. They were still trying to work out if that was the cause of the infection or if it was picked up elsewhere in the high-security facility.
As for inside the workplace, whether it is in the office or laboratory, we determined the laboratory has a higher risk. But whether the infection is from the [mouse] bite or the environment, we need to investigate further.”
The lab worker had no recent travel history and received two doses of the Moderna vaccine. The Academia Sinica lab has the second-highest bio-safety security level.
Taiwan won global praise early in the pandemic for the speed with which it sounded the alarm over the disease and managed to stamp it out locally. It has recorded more than 14,500 domestic cases and 848 deaths, the vast majority during the outbreak this year that was quashed.
The Omicron Covid variant has been found to multiply about 70 times quicker than the original and Delta versions of coronavirus in tissue samples taken from the bronchus, the main tubes from the windpipe to the lungs, in laboratory experiments that could help explain its rapid transmission.
The study, by a team from the University of Hong Kong, also found that the new variant grew 10 times slower in lung tissue, which the authors said could be an indicator of lower disease severity.
Michael Chan Chi-wai, who led the work, said the result needed to be interpreted with caution because severe disease is determined not only by how quickly the virus replicates but also by a person’s immune response and, in particular, whether the immune system goes into overdrive, causing a so-called cytokine storm.
“It is also noted that by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic,” he said. “Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from the Omicron variant is likely to be very significant.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-taiwans-pursuit-of-covid-zero-starts-to-show
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