UK man with virus had contact with dozens

Man thought to have contracted new virus in Singapore

LONDON — A middleaged businessman from England who vacationed in the Alps has shown how the ease of international travel is complicating global efforts to track and contain the new coronavirus that emerged in China.

From the Singapore hotel where he is believed to have contracted the virus during a conference, to a ski resort in the French Alps and a pub in his hometown of Hove in England, as well as the flights he took on his way back to Britain, the man came in contact with dozens of people, potentially infecting them before he was diagnosed and hospitalized. Health officials are now hunting for them.

Already, five Britons who stayed with him at a chalet in the Alps have been diagnosed with the virus, including a 9-year-old boy. Another man who stayed at the resort was discovered to be infected after returning to his home on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

The apparent ease with which the virus spread raises concern that some of the 90 others who attended the conference may also have been infected and “may go on to initiate chains of infection in their home countries,’’ said Dr. Nathalie MacDermott, a clinical lecturer at King’s College London.

The World Health Organization warned that given the relatively small cluster so far, it would be unfair and an exaggeration to characterize the businessman as a “super-spreader,” or someone who infects an unusually large number of people. And this is by no means the only cluster seen in the outbreak.

Still, the case of this single traveler from England underscores the importance of quick cross-border information-sharing and detective work to find other people potentially exposed.