CDC: Clinicians Should Be Aware of Pneumonia of Unknown Origin

By Kelly Young

Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH, and William E. Chavey, MD, MS

The CDC is requesting that clinicians ask their patients with severe respiratory disease about any recent travel to Wuhan City, China.

That city has seen at least 59 cases of pneumonia caused by an unknown pathogen since December. Seven of the 59 are critically ill.

China's Xinhua news agency says that the pathogen appears to be a previously unidentified coronavirus, Reuters reports. So far, the disease does not appear to be spreading person to person. The cluster is connected to a large wholesale fish and animal market, where some of the patients were vendors.

For any patients presenting with severe respiratory illness and a recent travel history to Wuhan, the CDC recommends that healthcare providers:

• collect nasopharyngeal, nasal, and throat swabs, as well as lower respiratory tract specimens;

• consider collecting urine, stool, serum, and respiratory pathology specimens;

• ask patients to wear surgical masks and evaluate them in a private room with the door closed; and

• require staff entering the room to use contact precautions and wear an N95 disposable facepiece respirator.