THE Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has detected a second case of the novel coronavirus in the United States after an infected woman returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan, and are monitoring 63 other possible infections across 22 US states, CNN reported on Friday.
The virus, which was first detected in Wuhan in late December, has already killed 26 people and infected more than 880 others in China. Amid the outbreak of the virus, several Chinese cities have been put on lockdown, while Beijing has decided to suspend all festivities for the Chinese New Year.
“CDC believes the immediate risk to the US public is low at this time, but the situation is evolving rapidly,” CDC senior official Nancy Messonnier was quoted as saying in the report.
The woman diagnosed with the virus is a resident of the US state of Illinois and travelled to China in late December, the report said, adding that she began experiencing symptoms upon returning to the United States last week.
On Tuesday, the CDC said a man from the US state of Washington has become the first US person to contact the coronavirus.
The CDC noted that the man reached out to local health authorities last week once he started experiencing pneumonia-like symptoms. He has been quarantined in a hospital outside of Seattle after flying back from Wuhan.
The Chinese disease prevention authority Friday released electron microscopic images and information of the first novel #coronavirus that Chinese experts had discovered. pic.twitter.com/EchRakBv0z
— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) January 24, 2020
Although the virus is yet to be known, some health experts suggested the Wuhan coronavirus’ natural host could be bats but acknowledged that between bats and humans there may be an unknown intermediate.
However, new images and videos surface on the Internet, showing Chinese citizens consuming the ‘bat soup’ delicacies in the weeks before the outbreak.
The World Health Organisation is yet to declare the outbreak a global emergency.