Source: Thailand Medical News Jan 31, 2020 4 years, 9 months, 3 weeks, 19 hours, 14 minutes ago
First
American domestic transmission of the new
coronavirus from China via a person to person incident has occurred according health officials.
The new case, the sixth in the country, is the husband of a Chicago woman who got sick from the virus after she returned from the epicenter of an outbreak in
China. There have been previous cases in
China and elsewhere of the
coranavirus spreading between people in a household or workplace.
The rest of the other five
U.S. cases were travelers who developed the respiratory illness after returning to the
U.S. from
China. The latest patient had not been in China.
The woman from
Chicago came back from the central
China city of Wuhan on Jan. 13, then last week went to a hospital with symptoms and was diagnosed with the viral illness. She and her husband, both in their 60s, are hospitalized. Neither have been identified.
Her husband began feeling sick Tuesday and was put in isolation that day. Tests confirming that he was infected came back Wednesday night, officials said.
United States health officials were quick to try to ease any concerns that the case signals the start of local outbreak.
Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health told
Thailand Medical News,"The risk to the general public in Illinois remains low."
The patient doesn't use public transportation and he had not attended any large gatherings. Anyone who had been in close contact with him is being monitored, said officials with the state and with the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The
coronavirus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. Health officials think it spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how the flu spreads.
Health experts have said they expected additional
U.S. cases, and that at least some limited spread of the disease in the country was likely.
Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert commented, "We anticipated this. The kind of contact that you have in a household is very close and very prolonged. That's the kind of circumstance where we would anticipate a
coronavirus such as this could be transmitted."
However, the quick detection and isolation of the new patient shows, "The system is working," said Schaffner, adding that he does not expect the virus to become widespread in the country.
The
China virus is a member of the &
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coronavirus family that's a close cousin to the SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past. The new virus has sickened thousands, mostly in
China, and killed about 213.
Typically, older people, and those with other health conditions, are believed to be at greater risk for severe illness from the virus. The new patient has a health condition, but health officials did not say what it is.
A global outbreak caused by the virus first emerged last month in China. Doctors there began seeing the new virus in people who got sick after spending time at a wholesale food market in Wuhan. Officials said the
coronavirus probably initially spread from animals to people, as did SARS and MERS.
Other
U.S. cases with infected individuals are in Arizona, Southern California and Washington state.
