Student and Employee Health Services monitoring coronavirus outbreak

The university’s emergency international security service has advised against travel to several cities in China.

Temple's Student and Employee Health Services is closely monitoring an ongoing outbreak of coronavirus that has spread from China to the United States and other countries. | LUKE SMITH / FILE PHOTO

International SOS, Temple’s emergency international security service, has advised against traveling to the Chinese cities Chibi, Ezhou, Huangang, Lichaun and Wuhan due to an ongoing outbreak of pneumonia caused by a new strain of coronavirus. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also recommended avoiding non-essential travel to Wuhan, China, according to Temple’s travel resource website.

Clinical staff at Temple’s student health services have the CDC’s advisory regarding the coronavirus, wrote Mark Denys, the senior director of Student and Employee Health Services, in an email to The Temple News.

“We have been monitoring the situation closely,” Denys wrote.  “At this point there is very little risk for anyone in the U.S.”

Coronavirus is a family of viruses that can cause respiratory tract diseases and illnesses, The New York Times reported.  Symptoms of this particular strain of coronavirus, which began in China and has spread to South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and the United States, include fever or pneumonia, The Times reported.

The coronavirus outbreak began in late December 2019 and is linked to a market in Wuhan, China which sold live seafood, live poultry and other live animals, The Times reported.

Student and Employee Health Services has posted warnings about coronavirus on their website and on Temple’s travel resources website.  Student Health Services has also sent warnings to students, faculty or staff members who might have recently been in China, Denys wrote.

Temple’s travel resources website advises readers to sign up for International SOS alerts.

Student Health Services will continue to monitor the outbreak, Denys wrote. 

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