A study reveals a new method of transmission of infection with corona

Researchers confirmed that diarrhea may be a pathway for transmission of the emerging coronavirus, after the publication of a study indicating that people with the disease suffer from digestive disorders.

The infection is transmitted mainly through the air through the spray of an infected person's cough, but researchers said after studying the first cases, they initially focused on respiratory symptoms, and they may have neglected those associated with the digestive system.

According to an article by Chinese researchers published in the Journal of the American Medical Association "American Medical Association", 14 of the 138 patients, whose case was studied in Bohan Hospital, had diarrhea and nausea one or two days before the appearance of fever and respiratory disorders.

The first American who was diagnosed with the disease also suffered from diarrhea for two days and later discovered the virus in his stool, according to "AFP."

The medical journal The Lancet has also documented similar cases in China, but it is not very common.

"It is important to note that it has been reported that the new Corona virus has been found in the stools of patients with unusual intestinal symptoms, similar to the SARS that was found in the urine," he said in a commentary to the magazine "Media Center" in Britain. That the virus can also be transmitted through feces. "

For scientists, this possibility is not surprising because it belongs to the same family as the virus that causes SARS, which was transmitted by feces to hundreds of people in a Hong Kong apartment complex in 2003.

According to the biological engineer at the University of California, Jiao Liao, based on research conducted so far, "the emerging SK virus infection can be transmitted through feces."

"But we don't yet know how long this virus lives outside the body and the temperatures that affect it," Liao added.

This discovery may pose a new challenge to fight the virus, but it may be an additional problem in hospitals that may turn into "epidemic amplification centers" for epidemics, according to David Wiseman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto.

Benjamin Noman, a virologist at Texas A&M University - Texarkana, in the United States, warned that "cough spray, touching contaminated surfaces and then rubbing the eyes, nose or mouth" remain the main source of transmission, according to the data currently available.