The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the second case of human transmission of the coronavirus within the United States.
The transmission happened in San Benito County, California. A 57-year-old man contracted the virus while visiting Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the viral outbreak, according to a Sunday press release from the county. He then returned to the U.S. and shared the virus with his 57-year-old wife.
“We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread among close contacts,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on Monday. “And we continue to expect this will happen given the explosive nature of this outbreak in China and our very aggressive public health response where we are putting a lot of resources into finding infections with this virus.”
Messonnier noted that the total number of cases in the U.S. had increased to 11.
The announcement comes after the first case of human-to-human transmission in the U.S., which was confirmed on Thursday in Chicago. That case also involved a 61-year-old traveler from Wuhan who spread the virus to her spouse. An additional 82 people are being monitored across the country for potential infections of the virus, which began just over a month ago.
The total number of those infected by the coronavirus has increased to more than 17,000, the majority of which are in mainland China. So far, 362 people have died from the illness, a larger number than the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a global public health emergency.
