Doctors urge US health body to share coronavirus facts

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - Some U.S. doctors accused the federal health agency of withholding "crucial" information that could help save lives of patients diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, according to a report.

The criticisms against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came after two people died of the disease in Washington state this weekend.

CNN reported Sunday that although several American patients have recovered from the deadly epidemic, the CDC has shared only one detailed clinical information about those patients -- which includes what treatments the patients received.

That nine-page report was published on Jan. 31 after the U.S. first coronavirus patient, a 35-year-old man in Washington, started to feel better.

"It's a medical truism that it's absolutely essential that physicians with experience with a particular condition disseminate information to others," Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told CNN.

Redlener added that not sharing such information is "inexplicable and inappropriate".

The top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said that "there will be reports".

"I'm sure that ultimately we're going to put the cases together and report them. That's what we do in medicine all the time," Fauci said.

Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, stressed that it would also be useful for doctors to know details about U.S. cases.

Top health officials -- from Chicago, Santa Clara County, San Francisco, San Benito County and Wisconsin -- told CNN that they have already shared detailed clinical information about their coronavirus patients with the CDC, adding the report is still "under review" and it is expected to be "published soon".

No statement has been made yet by the CDC on the issue.

The global death toll from the coronavirus has reached at least 3,000, with more than 88,000 infected.

The epidemic, officially known as COVID-19, has spread to more than 30 other countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Singapore, France, Russia, Spain and India.

The World Health Organization, which already declared the outbreak an international health emergency, updated the global risk level to very high.