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China study suggests 14-day COVID-19 quarantine too short for women

ROC Central News Agency

03/06/2020 10:35 PM

Taipei, March 6 (CNA) A Chinese study on the globally-spread epidemic caused by the new coronavirus (COVID-19) that first appeared in late 2019 in China's Wuhan, suggests there should be different control approaches between men and women, including a longer quarantine isolation period for women.

In the paper, titled "Women May Play a More Important Role in the Transmission of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) than Men," the research team from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University reports that women exhibit different characteristics from men in the transmission after analyzing the sex ratio of those infected with the highly contagious virus in the reported literature.

With retrospective analysis of 6,013 confirmed cases in the hospital up to Feb. 20, the research team received findings, including that women account for a lower proportion of early admissions of the outbreak but the ratio increased in the later stages.

Their data "may indicate that women not only suffer less damage, but may also have a longer incubation period than men," according to the not yet peer-reviewed paper, which was posted on the "Preprints with The Lancet" on March 3.

It says that women naturally have stronger antiviral immunity than men.

"When your immunity is strong enough to hold off the virus for longer, but not to kill it completely, you will gain a longer incubation period," according to the paper.

While there is clear evidence that COVID-19 patients remain highly contagious during the incubation period, the long latency in women "will undoubtedly have an important impact on the spread of the epidemic," the research paper says.

"In active or passive isolation, women may escape from diagnosis thanks to their long incubation period," it notes.

It is the first study to suggest that women may play a unique role in promoting the development of an epidemic because of their invisibility and long latency, the research team said in the paper, urging China and the rest of the world to adopt different control measures for women as soon as possible.

"During screening, nucleic acid testing should be carried out for women with a clear contact history, whether or not they have symptoms.

"Women under medical observation should also be isolated for longer than 14 days," the research team suggested.

The World Health Organization's information shows that the incubation period of those infected is up to 14 days.

Since COVID-19 outbreak started in December in Wuhan, the coronavirus has caused infections in nearly 100,000 people around the world, mostly in China, where more than 3,000 deaths have been recorded.

(By Elizabeth Hsu)

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