China’s coronavirus may transmit along faecal-oral route: Report

Virus genetic material was discovered in patient stool and rectal swabs, Xinhua said Sunday.

By: Bloomberg | Published: February 3, 2020 7:38:17 am

Coronavirus, china coronavirus, coronavirus infection, coronavirus symptoms

More than 14,000 people have been infected by coronavirus

The coronavirus that’s infected more than 14,000 people in two dozen countries may be transmitted through the digestive tract, Chinese state media reported.

Virus genetic material was discovered in patient stool and rectal swabs, Xinhua said Sunday. The finding was made by scientists from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences after noting that some patients infected with the 2019-nCoV virus had diarrhea early in the disease, instead of a fever, which is more common, the report said.

That means the pathogen might be transmitted along the fecal-oral route, not just from coming into contact with virus-laden droplets emitted from a sick person’s cough. Doctors have focused on respiratory samples from pneumonia cases to identify coronavirus patients, but they might have ignored diarrhea, a less apparent potential source of the spread, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.