(Reuters) - China’s National Health Commission confirmed on Monday that a new virus causing an outbreak of pneumonia in the country has been passed from person-to-person and has infected some medical staff, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.

Xinhua reported that Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of the health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong Province as due to human-to-human transmission.