Health officials in the UK will need to carry out detective work in order to track down people who have been in contact with coronavirus cases, experts have said.

HEALTH OFFICIALS NEED TO CARRY OUT DETECTIVE WORK TO TRACK DOWN PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS 

Health officials in the UK will need to carry out detective work in order to track down people who have been in contact with coronavirus cases, experts have said.

The first cases of the new virus have been diagnosed in England, with two people from the same family being treated at a specialist centre at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

An outbreak investigation team has been formed to trace anyone who has been in contact with the pair to prevent onward transmission.

Professor Jimmy Whitworth, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that tracking people who have come into contact with an infected case will take a lot of detective work.

He added: 'What you don't want is this to spread any more in the community.

'It would be a question of essentially a lot of detective work in identifying who are the people that the cases have been into contact with, tracking them down, and monitoring and testing them. 

'Now we believe that people can be infected before they actually show symptoms, that means cases and contacts will need to be tested to see if they are infected or not.'

The professor of international public health said that officials will likely prioritise people who came closest to the two cases.

He added: 'At the moment, Public Health England (PHE) will be giving priority to those who will have got the closest to these individuals.

'My anticipation is that it would be only people who were in close proximity to these individuals who would be at risk, those will be the people who they [PHE] try to identify.

'But of course it is difficult to track people down.'

Professor Whitworth said that the test can pick up the virus even if the person is not showing any symptoms.

He added: 'The test will become positive pretty rapidly because it is looking for the virus, so you could find out very rapidly.'

Professor Whitworth said that people who have been in China recently and report respiratory problems are most likely to need testing for the coronavirus.

He added: 'Essentially if there is someone who has been in China recently, and has any respiratory disease, the guidance is they should be tested for this new coronavirus.

'At the moment, the people that will be focused on are people who have been in China or been in contact with people in China - they are the ones most likely to be harbouring the infection.'

Professor Whitworth said that with only two cases diagnosed, the country's four specialist Airborne High Consequences Infectious Disease Centres (HCID) will easily have the capacity to treat patients.

But he said if the virus spreads more widely, people will have to be treated in other units. He added: 'These units have fairly limited capacity - if the numbers start to expand, then they will have.'