IPNEWS-MONROVIA: A Washington State man who recently traveled to China has been diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus, marking the first confirmed U.S. case of a mysterious new infection that has killed at least six people and sickened hundreds of others in Asia, federal health officials announced Tuesday.
According to CBS news, the patient, who was described as a Snohomish County resident in his 30s, is in good condition and “very healthy,” but he has been isolated as an abundance of caution, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters in a phone briefing.
The man apparently returned from a trip to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the respiratory infection first emerged, last Wednesday and did not present any symptoms until the following day, officials said. He had taken a non-direct flight to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and arrived two days before the U.S. began screening travelers at several international airports, according to the CDC.
Officials said the patient “proactively” contacted health providers to tell them he’d been to Wuhan and has been fully cooperative since.
Besides China, the outbreak has reached at least three other Asian countries — Thailand, Japan and South Korea — and has led airports around the globe to screen travelers for the virus.
The U.S. began screening passengers last week at New York City’s JFK airport and the Los Angeles and San Francisco airports. The CDC announced Tuesday that Chicago’s O’Hare and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airports will also began screening travelers this week and anyone returning from Wuhan will have to go to one of those five airports to enter the U.S.
Authorities believe the outbreak may have originated from contact between humans and animals because the first cases are linked to a large seafood and animal market in Wuhan. However, the Chinese government confirmed Monday that the new virus can spread from human to human, adding to growing fears of a massive outbreak and its potential impact on the economy.
All six deaths have been reported in China and most of those people were 60 .
