WHO Philippines: No Confirmed nCoV2019 Cases (for now)

#14,693


In the past several hours there have been a number of media reports (and a lot of twitter traffic) suggesting that the Philippines has a `confirmed coronavirus case'.  And if you just scan the headlines (which are technically accurate), you'd have reason to believe it to be true. 

Child from China tests positive for coronavirus in Cebu City

DOH monitoring boy from China who tested positive for coronavirus

But of course, there is more to the story than the headline implies.

There are - in addition to the novel coronaviruses (like MERS,SARS,and  nCoV2019) -   4 common human coronaviruses (229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1) that circulate widely every year in humans, and generally cause mild to moderate flu-like illness.

While some countries already have the ability to test directly for SARS, MERS-CoV, and this new nCoV2019, many still rely on a pan-coronavirus test that cannot differentiate between strains.

And in the Philippines, that is the `positive test' that has spurred all of this media reporting. Samples have been sent to an out-of-country lab for further analysis. 

From the WHO Interim Guidance on laboratory testing for the novel coronavirus clarifies:

Laboratories may desire to use a pan-coronavirus assay for amplification followed by sequencing of amplicons from non-conserved regions for characterization and confirmation. The importance of the need for confirmation of results of testing with pan-coronavirus primers is underscored by the fact that four human coronaviruses (HcoVs) are endemic globally: HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-HKU1 as well as HCoV-OC43. The latter two are betacoronaviruses. Two other betacoronaviruses that cause zoonotic infection in humans are MERS-CoV, acquired by contact with dromedary camels and SARS arising from civets and cave-dwelling horseshoe bats.

While one or more of the suspect cases in the Philippines may eventually prove positive for nCoV2019, right now that isn't the case, as per the following tweet from the World Health Organization Philippines Twitter account. 

Of course, news about this outbreak has a very limited shelf life.  What we say today (at  0400 hrs EST on the 21st) may be outdated, or null and void, a few hours from now.