Human-to-human transmission confirmed in China's coronavirus outbreak; 200 cases reported

Yanan Wang and Ken Moritsugu | Associated Press

Show Caption Hide Caption US airports screen passengers for China virus The Coronvirus outbreak in China has the CDC on alert. Screenings at three U.S. airports including San Francisco, JFK in New York and LAX. (Jan 18)

BEIJING – The head of a Chinese government expert team said Monday that human-to-human transmission has been confirmed in an outbreak of a new coronavirus, a development that raises the possibility that it could spread more quickly and widely.

Team leader Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert, said two people in Guangdong province in southern China caught the virus from family members, state media said. Some medical workers have also tested positive for the virus, the English-language China Daily newspaper reported.

Authorities announced a sharp increase in the number of confirmed cases to more than 200, and China’s leader called on the government to take every possible step to combat the outbreak.

“The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan and other places must be taken seriously,” President Xi Jinping said in his first public statement on the crisis. “Party committees, governments and relevant departments at all levels should put people’s lives and health first.”

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In Geneva, the World Health Organization announced it would convene an Emergency Committee meeting on Wednesday to determine whether the outbreak warrants being declared a global health crisis.

Such declarations are typically made for epidemics of severe diseases that threaten to cross borders and require an internationally coordinated response. Previous global emergencies have been declared for crises including the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo, the emergence of Zika virus in the Americas in 2016 and the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014.

The spread of the viral pneumonia comes as the country enters its busiest travel period, when millions board trains and planes for the Lunar New Year holidays. The outbreak may have started late last month when people picked it up at a fresh food market in Wuhan, a city in central China.

Wuhan health authorities said Monday that an additional 136 cases have been confirmed in the city, raising the total to 198. Three people have died.

Authorities announced cases in other Chinese cities for the first time.

Five people in Beijing and 14 in Guangdong have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, CCTV reported Monday evening. A total of seven suspected cases have been found in other parts of the country, including in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in the southwest and in Shanghai.

Zhong said the two people in Guangdong had not been to Wuhan but became ill after family members returned from the city, the China Daily said.

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The outbreak has put other countries on alert. Authorities in Thailand and in Japan identified at least three cases, all involving travel from China.

South Korea reported its first case Monday when a 35-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan tested positive for the coronavirus one day after arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport. The woman was isolated at a state-run hospital in Incheon city, west of Seoul, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

At least a half-dozen countries in Asia and three U.S. airports started screening airline passengers from central China.

People in protective suits checked the temperatures of plane passengers arriving in Macao from Wuhan.

Many of the initial cases of the coronavirus were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, which was closed as authorities investigated.

Since hundreds of people who came into close contact with diagnosed patients have not gotten sick, the municipal health commission maintained that the virus is not easily transmitted between humans.

China’s National Health Commission said experts judged the outbreak to be “preventable and controllable.”

“However, the source of the new type of coronavirus has not been found, we do not fully understand how the virus is transmitted, and changes in the virus still need to be closely monitored,” the commission said in a statement Sunday.

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Coronaviruses cause diseases ranging from the common cold to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS infected people in southern China in late 2002 and spread to more than two dozen countries, killing nearly 800. The Chinese government initially tried to conceal the severity of the SARS epidemic.

Xi instructed government departments Monday to promptly release information on the virus and deepen international cooperation.

China has maintained close communication with the World Health Organization and other countries and regions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a news briefing.

Wuhan has adopted measures to control the flow of people leaving the city, Geng said.

The virus causing the outbreak is different from those previously identified, Chinese scientists said this month. Initial symptoms of the novel coronavirus include fever, cough, tightness of the chest and shortness of breath.

On the Weibo social media platform, which is widely used in China, people posted prevention advice such as wearing masks and washing hands. State broadcaster CCTV recommended staying warm, increasing physical activity, eating lightly and avoiding crowded places. Some people canceled their travel plans and stayed home for Lunar New Year.

Contributing: researcher Yu Bing in Beijing and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea

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