(KMJ) – The World Health Organization has decided that the coronavirus outbreak that began in China is a public health emergency of international concern.
The decision, recommended by an emergency committee at the global agency, is likely to trigger more aid for the crisis.
The husband of an Illinois woman with Wuhan coronavirus is now infected with the illness, and is the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield says experts were expecting to find some person-to-person spread in the U-S.
The woman, who is in her 60s, is the first confirmed travel-associated case in Illinois and was diagnosed after returning from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak originated.
She is “doing quite well” and remains hospitalized primarily for isolation, doctors told reporters during a telebriefing with reporters on Thursday.
The husband, who did not travel to China, was admitted more recently to the hospital and has some underlying medical conditions, but is stable. “Given what we’ve seen in China versus other countries, CDC experts have expected to find some person-to-person spread in the United States,”
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said during the telebriefing. “Based on what we know now, our assessment remains that the immediate risk to the American public is low.”
More than 100 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus have now been identified outside China, even as countries scramble to protect their citizens.
In all, there have been at least 170 deaths and more than 7,700 confirmed cases of the virus.
