The World Health Organization (WHO) is charged with tracking outbreaks of novel diseases around the world. For novel disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, COVID-19, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (Corona-CoV), etc., WHO does report cumulative updates of the counts and locations of cases providing that the member states comply with International Health Regulations (IHR) about timely reporting of cases.
However, WHO does not provide a publicly available line list of cases of these novel disease outbreaks. Such line lists of cases with epidemiological and geographic information help researchers and the general public assess the potential danger of these novel outbreaks. Through December 2, 2013, more than 170 confirmed and probable human cases of Corona-CoV have been reported from 11 countries including France, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Members of FluTrackers.com have been compiling a line list of confirmed Corona-CoV cases since early in 2013.[1]
I have posted a concordance list of the WHO confirmed cases with the individually reported and tracked Corona-CoV cases by FluTrackers members at this link.[2] This concordance list provides a basis for the general public to obtain more detailed information about individual cases in order to assess for themselves the nature and geographic distribution of this novel coronavirus.
[1] 2012/2013 Case List of MoH/WHO Novel Coronavirus nCoV Announced Cases
[2] WHO Corona-CoV Case Concordance List (as of December 2, 2013)
Showing posts with label line list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label line list. Show all posts
Friday, December 6, 2019
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Correlating the World Health Organization (WHO) Line List of Corona Case Numbers from the Republic of Korea (ROK)
The recent outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Corona) in the Republic of Korea (ROK) is the largest outbreak outside of the Arabian Peninsula since Corona was first reported in 2012. A total of 185 cases of Corona have been reported to date by the World Health Organization (WHO) from the ROK (see Annex 1). The media has reported that the outbreak in the ROK is over (link), however, WHO does not consider an infectious disease outbreak to be over until twice the maximum incubation period has passed interrupting the chain of human-to-human transmission. The maximum incubation period for Corona is believed to be14 days. The end of the outbreak will only be signaled 28 days after the last Corona-infected individual in the ROK tests negative sometime in the future.
Because of the size and nature of the Corona outbreak in the ROK, researchers will be analyzing the epidemiological data from the ROK outbreak in the future to assess what can be learned from this outbreak. Critical to such analysis is accurate, individual details of each case.
Below is a table correlating the WHO line list of Corona case numbers from the ROK (see Annex 1) with the line list of case numbers from the ROK Ministry of Health and Welfare (see Annex 2), and the line list of Corona disease events from ROK reported by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (link).
A link to a pdf file of this table and a CSV table of this data are presented below. Hopefully this concordance table will be useful to current and future Corona researchers.
General Table Comments:
1. There are some discrepancies in patient ages between the WHO line list of cases and the ROK line list of cases.
2. ROK Ministry of Health case #10 is not included in the WHO line list from the ROK. This case was reported from China on May 30, 2015 (link) with symptom onset of May 21, 2015 (WHO Corona ordinal number: 1148). While this case is considered part of the 2015 Asia outbreak of Corona it is not included in the WHO line list of cases from the ROK.
3. WHO ordinal case numbers are not necessarily in the correct order for individual cases when WHO presents aggregate case counts in a Disease Outbreak News reports.
4. There appears to be some discrepancies between FAO Corona case data and WHO Corona case data.
5. The correlation presented in the above table is the best informed concordance of case listings.
Details of Column Headings:
WHO Case Number: WHO Case Number for Corona cases from ROK
Ordinal Case Number, WHO: Ordinal Corona Case Number based on WHO Disease Outbreak News reports
ROK Case Number: ROK Ministry of Health and Welfare Case Number
WHO Age: Age reported by WHO
ROK Age: Age reported by ROK Ministry of Health
WHO Gender: Gender reported by WHO
ROK Gender: Gender reported by ROK Ministry of Health
Onset Date: Symptom onset date reported by WHO
FAOid: Disease event identifier from FAO for ROK Corona cases
Caseid: Unique case identifier number
Annex 2. Corona Case Details reported by ROK Ministry of Health and Welfare
ROK Case Number 1 to 145 (June 14, 2015)
ROK Case Number 146 to 150 (June 15, 2015)
ROK Case Number 151 to 154 (June 16, 2015)
ROK Case Number 155 to 162 (June 17, 2015)
ROK Case Number 163 to 165 (June 18, 2015)
ROK Case Number 166 (June 19, 2015)
ROK Case Number 167 to 169 (June 21, 2015)
ROK Case Number 170 to 172 (June 22, 2015)
ROK Case Number 173 to 175 (June 23, 2015)
ROK Case Number 76 to 179 (June 24, 2015)
ROK Case Number 180 (June 25, 2015)
ROK Case Number 181 (June 26, 2015)
ROK Case Number 182 (June 27, 2015)
ROK Case Number 183 (July 2, 2015)
ROK Case Number 184 (July 3, 2015)
ROK Case Number 185 (July 4, 2015)
ROK Case Number 186 (July 5, 2015)
Thursday, June 6, 2019
What is the actual count of Corona-CoV cases and the number of deaths?
With less than 60 Corona-CoV cases scattered around the world why is it so difficult for national and international public health agencies to report an accurate account of infected individuals including the number who died.
The World Health Organization charged with tracking health issues around the world reports that there have been 54 cases of Corona-CoV infection and 30 deaths. [1]
The CDC-USA reports a total of 55 cases and 30 deaths. [2]
A tabulation provided by the Virology Down Under blog identifies a total count of 55 cases and 33 deaths. [3]
FluTrackers identifies 55 cases but only 26 deaths in its list of cases. [4]
And through May 30, 2013, the ECDC reports a total of 49 cases with 27 deaths. [5]
This confusion over the number of Corona-CoV cases and how many deaths highlight the needs for one central, official, line list of cases that is publicly available on the internet. Paramount in this case list is to distinguish between confirmed cases, probable cases, and suspected cases. Ideally, this line list would include cases that were previously reported as confirmed or probable, and then later identified as negative cases. This would alleviate much of the reporting and tabulation differences that occur when comparing case counts from different agencies and organizations.
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