Reconstruction of Timeline of Novel Coronavirus Outbreak in Jordan in April 2012

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Reconstruction of timeline of novel coronavirus outbreak in Jordan in April 2012

This tentative reconstruction is based on computer translated media reports from Jordan and international agency announcements and media reports concerning confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus.

According to the ECDC the outbreak in Jordan occurred between April 7 and 21 eventually resulting in 11 cases (link). FluTrackers.com first began posting media reports related to this novel disease outbreak April 20,2012 (link) with nine cases noted. Eight worked in the Zarqa Hospital including one doctor (Saeed Shaheen?) and seven nurses. One of the seven nurses died on April 19^th. The nurse who died was Atef Balawi, a 40 year old female (link). This is one of the confirmed coronavirus cases in Jordan. The ninth case was the brother of Atef, the deceased nurse (link). He was the only non-hospital employee infected at this stage of the outbreak.

By the 20^th of April, the doctor had recovered and left the hospital to recuperate at home (link) and the brother and six nurses had been transferred to Prince Hamzah Hospital for treatment. On April 21, Dr. Daifallah Lozi stated that the six nurses had recovered and were released from the hospital. Only Atef’s brother was still being treated in the hospital (link).

The events or the sequence of infections in early April leading up to the media reports on April 20, are unclear. It is possible that a woman from the Philippines who was treated in Zarqa hospital and died in early April was the index case in this outbreak (link).

Two more cases were identified to bring the total to 11 by April 22. One additional case was a doctor (link) and possibly another nurse or other hospital maintenance worker (link) as reported on April 25.

By April 24^th the media noted that the Ministry of Health was reporting a total 12 cases at Prince Hamzah Hospital (link). By April 25, a college student, “m.A.T.” was transferred to Prince Hamzah Hospital and died that night, reportedly infected with the same virus as the other 11 previous cases (link). This is most likely the second fatal confirmed coronavirus case reported by WHO (link), it may be the same individual referred to in this FluTrackers post (link).

Among all of these cases, only the two deceased individuals have been officially confirmed as cases infected with the novel coronavirus. Based on the information above, there does not seem to be any connection between either of the two deceased individuals.

Because the Jordan coronavirus outbreak appears to be the earliest and may have resulted in human-to-human transmission, more scrutiny of this outbreak is warranted.

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Additional notes – Atef Balawi, the deceased nurse, is referred to in many FluTrackers posts with different machine or computer translations –
“Pathogenic Balawi”
“Emotions Balawi”
“emotions”
“emotions of Balawi”
“nurse Balawi”
“nurse emotions scourge”