Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Infectious Diseases and Sexual Health Services, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Intern Med J. 2021 Jan;51(1):42-51. doi: 10.1111/imj.15105.
On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization recognised clusters of pneumonia-like cases due to a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). COVID-19 became a pandemic 71 days later.
To report the clinical and epidemiological features, laboratory data and outcomes of the first group of 11 returned travellers with COVID-19 in Australia.
This is a retrospective, multi-centre case series. All patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection were admitted to tertiary referral hospitals in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.
The median age of the patient cohort was 42 years (interquartile range (IQR), 24-53 years) with six men and five women. Eight (72.7%) patients had returned from Wuhan, one from Shenzhen, one from Japan and one from Europe. Possible human-to-human transmission from close family contacts in gatherings overseas occurred in two cases. Symptoms on admission were fever, cough and sore throat (n = 9, 81.8%). Co-morbidities included hypertension (n = 3, 27.3%) and hypercholesterolaemia (n = 2, 18.2%). No patients developed severe acute respiratory distress nor required intensive care unit admission or mechanical ventilation. After a median hospital stay of 14.5 days (IQR, 6.75-21), all patients were discharged.
This is a historical record of the first COVID-19 cases in Australia during the early biocontainment phase of the national response. These findings were invaluable for establishing early inpatient and outpatient COVID-19 models of care and informing the management of COVID-19 over time as the outbreak evolved. Future research should extend this Australian case series to examine global epidemiological variation of this novel infection.
2019 年 12 月 31 日，世界卫生组织确认了一组新型冠状病毒疾病（COVID-19）引起的肺炎样病例。COVID-19 在 71 天后成为大流行。
报告澳大利亚第一批 11 名归国旅行者 COVID-19 的临床和流行病学特征、实验室数据和结局。
这是一项回顾性、多中心病例系列研究。所有确诊 COVID-19 感染的患者均被收入新南威尔士州、昆士兰州、维多利亚州和南澳大利亚州的三级转诊医院。
患者队列的中位年龄为 42 岁（四分位距（IQR），24-53 岁），有 6 名男性和 5 名女性。8 名（72.7%）患者从武汉返回，1 名从深圳，1 名从日本，1 名从欧洲。在 2 例病例中，海外聚集时可能发生了密切家庭接触者之间的人与人传播。入院时的症状为发热、咳嗽和咽痛（n = 9，81.8%）。合并症包括高血压（n = 3，27.3%）和高胆固醇血症（n = 2，18.2%）。无患者发生严重急性呼吸窘迫，无需入住重症监护病房或机械通气。中位住院时间为 14.5 天（IQR，6.75-21）后，所有患者均出院。
这是澳大利亚在国家应对措施的早期生物遏制阶段首次出现 COVID-19 病例的历史记录。这些发现对于建立早期住院和门诊 COVID-19 护理模式非常有价值，并随着疫情的发展，随着时间的推移，为 COVID-19 的管理提供了信息。未来的研究应扩展该澳大利亚病例系列，以研究这种新型感染的全球流行病学变异。
