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Frantic hunt is launched for patients treated by two GPs among EIGHT infected with coronavirus – Daily Mail, Dailymail.co.uk

Frantic hunt is launched for patients treated by two GPs among EIGHT infected with coronavirus – Daily Mail, Dailymail.co.uk

Britain is facing a major coronavirus outbreak after the illness struck down two GPs -sparking an urgent hunt for potentially hundreds of people who could have been in contact with people They have treated.

Public health officials have shut down their surgery and are urgently tracing patients who might have been infected.

Tracking down the patients of the two Brighton doctors has been made a priority because the virus is known to be particularly dangerous for those with pre-existing health conditions.

NHS sources stressed a maximum of patients came into contact with them since their return from the French chalet.

However, Whitehall sources suggested the cluster of cases meant hundreds of people would now have to be tested for the virus.

The news comes as the death toll from the killer disease tops 1, 14.

At least one of the infected doctors is thought to have practiced at the County Oak Medical Center on Carden Hill. It was shut down yesterday for a deep clean.

The Brighton doctors are among 14 Britons thought to have caught the virus from a ‘super-spreader’, a middle-aged businessman who contracted it in Singapore. He is believed to be a scoutmaster and married father-of-one.

County Oak medical center in Brighton has been shut down, sealed off and was cleaned by a team in hazmat suits’ because of an urgent operational health and safety reason ‘

Brighton GP surgery the County Oak Medical Center has been closed today for’ urgent operational health and safety reasons’ after a member of staff tested positive for the killer coronavirus

Dr Catriona Saynor (pictured left) quit as a partner in Brighton to live permanently in the French chalet where the British super-spreader visited to ski. She works at County Oak Medical Centreas a locum, according to the medical center’s website. Her husband Bob and their nine-year-old son are also said to have been confirmed with coronavirus

He apparently passed it on to a group he stayed with at a French ski chalet close to Mont Blanc.

Six of the infected Britons are being treated in France and Spain, but the other five, including the GPs, are back in the Brighton area.

It is feared the super-spreader, who is in an isolation unit, came into contact with hundreds of people on his return to Britain.

A source who knows the super-spreader told the Sun: ‘I know he was in Singapore because I was aware he was attending a conference.

‘After that was done, he went to the chalet in France via Geneva, which is an hour away, and he stayed there for a week.

‘After spending five days at the chalet, he took an easyJet flight home to Gatwick and went back to Brighton.’

A note on the front of the County Oak Medical Center in Brighton saying the surgery has been closed for ‘operational difficulties’

A Scout Association spokesman last night could not confirm whether one of its , members had contracted the virus.

The World Health Organization expressed its alarm about the situation last night. ‘The detection of this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire,’ said its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He said it was worrying that the illness had been transmitted by people with no travel history to China, where the virus originated.

As the death toll in China passed 1, 11 and the Department of Health declared a ‘serious and imminent threat’:

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