Page 6 - Pulse@UM Issue 1/2020

Active surveillance of HCWs can be highly References: Continuous Evolution of
resource-intensive. An automated method
through mass texting service to contact 1. Operational Considerations for the
HCWs as a prompt for self-assessment Identification of Healthcare Workers and SARS-CoV-2 and Animal
through the UMMC portal is now being Inpatients with Suspected COVID-19 in non-
developed. It is hoped this will help to US Healthcare Settings. https://www.cdc.gov/ Coronaviruses
improve the overall quality of the UMMC coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/non-us-settings/
COVID-19 HCW Surveillance System and guidance-identify-hcw-patients.html
its sustainability. Thus, UMMC HCWs can 2. Guidelines on core components of infection TEE KOK KENG
be continuously monitored and protected prevention and control programmes at the (Department of Medical Microbiology)
throughout this COVID-19 pandemic. national and acute health care facility level.
For more information on a series of news World Health Organization 2016. https://www. he severe acute respiratory syndrome response (escape mutants), or simply
clips, articles and media interviews on who.int/gpsc/ipc-components/en/ Tcoronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which non-detectability by the conventional
COVID19, please visit https://spm.um.edu. causes COVID-19, is a new virus that belongs diagnostic assay that was designed based
my/ to the family Coronaviridae that normally on the wild type strain (diagnostic drift).

circulate in animals and humans. Like any However, such events are yet to be reported
other viruses, SARS-CoV-2 will continue in the literature at this point. Therefore,
to mutate while circulating in humans. continuous genetic surveillance and
mass sequencing are essential to trace the
Such mutations, however, are usually minor distribution and dispersion of the virus.
and take a long time to accumulate. In
the past four months since the outbreak In addition to genetic surveillance in the
started, the virus has been spreading in community, continuous search for other
many countries and genetic analysis of animal coronaviruses that may have the
the virus sampled across the world has potential for cross-species transmission
shown some degree of minor mutations, or from the reservoir and/or intermediate
polymorphisms, that are specific to certain host(s) to humans remains an important
geographical regions with epidemiological goal in understanding zoonotic diseases.
linkage. These mutations are most likely
non-alarming, but serve as a “signature”
that help epidemiologists to track the
movement (gene flow) of the virus. So, “
not all mutations are harmful, per se. Like any other viruses,

However, if certain mutations occur in SARS-CoV-2 will continue to
some important proteins of the virus,
either through a random event or positive mutate while circulating in
selection, these mutations may change the humans
phenotype or characteristics of the virus.

Surveillance team responsible for the monitoring of COVID-19 among healthcare workers in PPUM Such mutants may cause more severe “

disease (increased virulence), greater
transmissibility (increased virus fitness),
more resistance to the human immune

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