Research Publications (Food Safety)

Although now a Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Annelies Wilder-Smith did not seek out a career in emerging infectious diseases. Her career goal had always been tropical and travel medicine, “but emerging infectious diseases came to me”, she tells The Lancet Infectious Diseases. She faced the first severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak when living in Asia in 2003.

US researchers have identified four compounds with in-vitro potency against severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). X-ray crystallography and 3D modelling of molecular docking showed that the compounds targeted the virus' main protease, Mpro, which is essential in host-cell entry and viral replication.

Lockdown measures and school closures affect girls and women differently across the world and may have long-term negative consequences. Talha Burki reports.

Ektorp E. Death threats after a trial on chloroquine for COVID-19.

The publication of a new WHO road map to reduce the burden of neglected tropical diseases highlights the importance of strengthening health systems. Tim Jesudason reports.

Racial violence and racial health inequities in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impact on Blacks. Sharrelle Barber reports.

Huang Y, Cheng W, Zhao N, Qu H, Tian J. CT screening for early diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Lancet Infect Dis 2020; published online March 26. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30241-3—In this Correspondence, the affiliation Guangdong Province Hospital for Occupational Disease Prevention and Treatment has been corrected.

We thank Mohamed Hassany and colleagues, Ahmed Negida, Tarek Sahmoud, and Khaled Elmeleegy for raising their concerns about our modelling study. We would like to reiterate that the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in every country worldwide (Egypt included) is an underestimate of the true burden of illness, regardless of the screening programmes in place.

To estimate the burden of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Egypt, Ashleigh R Tuite and colleagues1 used the same model of exported case detection used by Fraser and colleagues for the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico.2 However, Tuite and colleagues neither clarified nor verified the assumptions of this exported case-detection model.

In December, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, China, causing a pandemic that continues to spread globally.1 86 countries have reported cases.2 As of March 6, 2020, Egypt has reported three cases of COVID-19; however, at least 14 cases have been exported from Egypt to four countries.3 The burden of infection in Egypt, therefore, might be substantially larger than reported.

A clinically significant risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission by fomites (inanimate surfaces or objects) has been assumed on the basis of studies that have little resemblance to real-life scenarios.

“We're not just fighting a pandemic; we're fighting an infodemic,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's director-general, at the 2020 Munich Security Conference. Fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories have become prevalent in the age of social media and have skyrocketed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation is extremely concerning because it undermines trust in health institutions and programmes.

As the far-reaching impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic expand to more and more countries, key questions about transmission dynamics and optimal intervention strategies remain unanswered. In particular, the age profile of susceptibility and infectivity, the frequency of super-spreading events, the amount of transmission in the household, and the contribution of asymptomatic individuals to transmission remain debated.

In December, 2019, COVID-19 was recognised as a novel respiratory disease in Wuhan, China,1 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).2 Accurate and reliable data on SARS-CoV-2 incubation time, secondary attack rate, and transmission dynamics are key to successful containment. In late January, 2020, infection with SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Germany for the first time.