The Japanese Society of Chemotherapy and The Japanese Society of Association for Infectious Diseases established the “JIC Award” to commend high-quality papers published in the Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy. In each volume of the Journal, one article is selected on the vote of the JIC Award Selection Committee. For volume 26, 2020, the following article was selected.
Title: Clinical characteristics of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on a cruise ship
Author: Yukihiro Yoshimura, Hiroaki Sasaki, Hiroshi Horiuchi, Nobuyuki Miyata, Natsuo Tachikawa
J Infect Chemother (2020) 26: 1177-1180
Abstract
Background: A large COVID-19 outbreak occurred on the cruise ship Diamond Princess in February 2020.Little information has been reported about the clinical characteristics of the patients.
Methods: This single-center, retrospective, observational study was conducted in Yokohama, Japan. We included symptomatic patients who were infected on the ship and admitted to our hospital between 5 and 19 February 2020. All the cases were confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 infection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
Results: We confirmed 17 cases. The average age was 69 years; 10 patients were Asian and 7 were Caucasian. Eleven patients had one or more chronic diseases. The major symptoms were cough and fever. Chest computed tomography (CT) scans found bilateral ground-glass opacities predominantly in the peripheral area, which were similar to reports from cases in China. C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were higher in severe and critical cases than in mild to moderate cases. The moderate to severe cases reached symptomatic resolution; one of the three critical cases resulted in death due to multiple organ failure. SARS-CoV-2 was detected by PCR at an average of 7 days after symptomatic resolution.
Conclusions: Cough and fever, increased blood CRP levels, and CT findings of bilateral ground-glass opacities predominantly in the peripheral lung were characteristic of the COVID-19 cases in this study. These findings were compatible with those of previous reports.
Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
March 6,
2020
Received:
February 25,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
