there are now 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States and in two of those cases
that did not recently go to China according to Alex a czar Secretary of Health and Human
Services chair of President trumps coronavirus task force he says although the virus represents
a potentially very serious public health threat and we expect to continue seeing more cases here
the immediate risk to the American public is low at this time and I agree especially when
you compare this to the influenza virus which is going around like crazy right now it's causing
a lot of morbidity and mortality way more so than the corona viruses at least in the United
States mysteries are also said we're working as quickly as possible on the many unanswered
questions about the virus that includes exactly how it spreads how deadly it is whether it's
commonly transmitted by patients who are not yet displaying symptoms and other issues meanwhile
there might be an adequate drug on the horizon to treat the coronavirus there is currently a
randomized controlled clinical trial for a new antiviral drug for the novel coronavirus the
drug is called Reb desi fear and it's currently being given in China to some patients with the
novel coronavirus On January 26 a 35 year old patient in the United States who had the 2019
novel coronavirus received REM des appear a week after he was admitted to the hospital according
to reports five days after being treated with Rum desert vir with all the symptoms resolving
except for his cough which had improved Ronda severe is a novel nucleotide analog pro drug
originally developed by the biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences as a treatment for Ebola
and Marburg virus though it has subsequently also been found to show reasonable antiviral activity
against somewhat related viruses like respiratory syncytial virus in corona viruses REM des aveer is
yet to be approved anywhere globally and although it appears to be safe it still has not been proven
to be safe or effective for any use however the encouraging result prompted Gilead and the Chinese
authorities to move the phase three clinical trial ahead and expand it to a lot more patients
who need treatment desperately according to dr. Anthony Fauci of the CDC he says what they're
looking at is the effect of this truck either the drug plus standard of care versus standard
of care alone I think pretty soon we're going to get a definitive answer whether one of these
among several drugs works the clinical trial is expected to be completed in April so as of right
now the only definitive treatment for coronavirus is strictly supported treatment only besides this
drug to potentially treat coronavirus there's also several organizations in investigators
working on developing a vaccine for the new virus according to dr. Fauci one of the first steps is
to successfully get that novel coronavirus gene and insert it into the messenger RNA platform
successfully and allow it to express proteins he says we've succeeded in doing that the next step
is to put it in a mouse animal model to induce immunogenicity you need to get the company to make
gold nanoparticle products he says all of those have been successfully implemented he later says
if that continues we'll be in phase one trials and people within the next two and a half months
also as a February 7th more action is being taken to protect Americans from a potential coronavirus
epidemic dr. Robert Redfield who's director of the CDC announced that Health and Human Services
issued an interim final rule to amend foreign quarantine regulations in the wake of the public
health threat posed by the new virus he said this will enable CDC to collect certain contact
information data regarding airline passengers and crew when they arrive from other countries and may
be exposed to communicable disease now let's talk about testing for the coronavirus the testing is
with real-time PCR testing meaning polymerase chain reaction because this is a new virus with
new testing the exact accuracy of the test meaning sensitivity and specificity of the test is still
not known the US Food and Drug Administration recently announced that it authorizes emergency
use of the CDC developed coronavirus tests in qualified labs around the United States previously
the test for the Wuhan coronavirus could only be performed at CDC headquarters in Atlanta but like
most tests and medicine they're not always 100% accurate the FDA noted that negative results on
the test do not preclude infection with the virus and negative results must be combined
with clinical observations patient history and epidemiological information in other words a
positive test becomes more accurate when there's a high positive predictive value for example if
someone comes into contact with someone from Wuhan China and that person then develops symptoms and
they have secretions coming from their nose and those secretions are swapped a positive
test result is more likely to be accurate in contrast if someone who does not have symptoms
and they have a positive test result that test is more likely to be a false positive now let's look
at another situation what if someone comes into contact with someone who has a coronavirus and
then they develop symptoms but have a negative test result in that case the test would have
a low negative predictive value meaning the test is more likely to have a false negative
dr. Nancy Missoni a director of CDC's National Center for immunization and respiratory diseases
said a negative test result most likely means the person is not infected however it may mean that an
infection has not developed enough to be detected by the test she also said the CDC has been asking
doctors for multiple samples including swabs from the nose and the throat what she's essentially
saying is that when you have the appropriate clinical context meaning someone who's been in
contact with someone from Wuhan China or someone was in contact with that person and that person
ends up developing the symptoms such as runny nose congestion cough fever then when you test
that person especially with multiple swabs from the nose and from the throat that's more likely
to be an accurate test so if that test ends up being positive that's more likely to be a true
positive and if it ends up to be negative it's more to be a true negative and this is why it
doesn't make sense to test people who are not symptomatic so the false negative tests are
more likely to occur at the onset of infection before they become more symptomatic so that's
all for this video on corona virus stay tuned subscribe because I'll be making some more as
we have more updates coming I hope you enjoy the video and I'll see you in the next one