Transmission from human to human verified in China outbreak of coronavirus
BEIJING — The head of a Chinese government team of experts said Monday that human-to-human transmission had been confirmed in an outbreak of a new coronavirus, a development that raised 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 also have tested positive for the virus, the English-language China Daily newspaper said.
The announcement capped a day in which authorities announced a sharp uptick 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.” Xi’s remarks were reported by state broadcaster CCTV.
Concerned about a global outbreak similar to SARS, which spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002 and 2003, numerous nations have adopted screening measures for travelers arriving from China.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization announced it would convene an Emergency Committee meeting on Wednesday to determine whether the outbreak warranted 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 China enters its busiest travel period, when millions board trains and planes for the Lunar New Year holidays. The outbreak is believed to 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 had been confirmed in the city, raising the total to 198. On Tuesday, authorities announced the death toll had risen from three to four.
All four fatalities have been in Wuhan, although it wasn’t clear if the latest death was a new case or one already diagnosed. Authorities elsewhere also announced cases in other Chinese cities for the first time.
Five individuals in Beijing and 14 in Guangdong also have been diagnosed with 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 fell ill after family members returned from the city, the China Daily said.