GUANGZHOU, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Renowned Chinese respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan on Tuesday warned the public to keep their waste pipes unobstructed as the novel coronavirus may spread through drainage systems.
"If a waste pipe is blocked, the contaminated air, or the aerosol carrying the novel coronavirus, may cause infection," Zhong told a press conference held in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.
Zhong is the head of a national team of experts set up for the control and prevention of the novel coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Two separate research groups, one of which was led by Zhong, announced last week they had isolated novel coronavirus strains from samples of infected patients' feces, triggering suspicion of fecal-oral transmission.
"I don't think the virus was ingested but inhaled by people," he said, adding that hospitals should also pay attention to drainage pipes.
He said a similar case happened in 2003, when over 300 people were infected with SARS in a Hong Kong residential community due to the defective design of its sewage system that caused the spread of the virus.
Earlier this month, dozens of households in a residential building in Hong Kong's Tsing Yi area were evacuated after two COVID-19 cases were found on different floors in the same building. Authorities are still investigating how the two individuals became infected, as experts suspected a modified drainage pipe might have led to the infections.
