March 7, 2020
A message from the Medical Services of the Ministry of Health Cyprus:
Please read the updated guidelines for the new coronavirus Medical and Public Health Services at: https://www.pio.gov.cy/coronavirus/
This link takes you to pages which are only in Greek at the current time.
Rough translation as follows:
The following definition has been drawn up in accordance with the updated ECDC guidelines and relates both to the detection of suspected cases of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and to laboratory testing and reporting to the Epidemiological Surveillance and Control Unit (NCDC). MEU & ELN).
Suspicious case
1. Patient with acute respiratory infection (sudden onset of symptoms of at least one of the following: cough, fever, respiratory distress) and without any other justification to explain the presence of symptoms AND with a history of travel or residence in a country / region with an active epidemic community (countries / regions of category 1 or category 2 according to the list of affected countries of EUM & ELN1) 14 days2 before the onset of symptoms, or
2. Patient with any acute respiratory infection AND history of close contact3 with confirmed or probable case of COVID-19, 14 days before the onset of symptoms, or
3. Patient with severe acute respiratory infection (fever and at least one respiratory symptom eg cough, fever, respiratory distress) AND need hospitalization and no other reason to justify clinical picture
Possible case
Suspected case with laboratory test result:
• Indeterminate for the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus
• Positive result but with a laboratory method that generally detects coronaviruses and not specifically the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus
Confirmed case
Person with laboratory confirmed infection with the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, regardless of clinical symptoms and signs Any case, suspected, probable or confirmed, should be reported directly to the Epidemiological Surveillance and Surveillance Unit14 of the Medical Examinations and Control Unit
1 Clinicians should consider the possibility of atypical disease in patients with underlying immunosuppression
2 Based on the limited epidemiological data available so far on the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, its maximum incubation period is estimated to be 14 days, based on epidemiological data on the MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV viruses.
3 Defined as "close contact" (see documents https://tinyurl.com/uafmdnt and https://tinyurl.com/tjtp34y):
(a) Exposure to health care, including immediate patient care, working with professionals who experienced COVID-19 infection, visiting a patient or staying in the same enclosure as a patient with COVID-19
b) Working in close physical contact or staying in the same classroom with a patient with COVID-19
(c) Travel with a COVID-19 infection patient by any means of transport
d) Accommodation in the same house with a patient with COVID-19.
An up-to-date list of areas where continued community transmission is considered is available at https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/areas-presumed-ongoing-community-transmission-2019-ncov.
Countries outside China considered to fall within the epidemiological definition as of 24/2/20 are the Republic of Korea
Japan
Northern Italy (Veneto-Venice, Lombardy-Milan)
Iran.
