China confirms human-to-human transmission of coronavirus

Medical staff carry a patient into a hospital in Wuhan where patients infected with the coronavirus are being treated

China’s health ministry has confirmed human-to-human transmission of a mysterious Sars-like virus that has spread across the country and fuelled anxiety about the prospect of a major outbreak as millions begin travelling for lunar new year celebrations.

Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of the national health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong province had been caused by human-to-human transmission and medical staff had been infected, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

Authorities earlier reported 139 new cases of the new strain of coronavirus over the weekend, bringing the total number of infected patients to 217 since the virus was first detected last month in the central city of Wuhan.

It was also confirmed on Tuesday that an 89-year-old man had died from the virus in Wuhan, bringing the number of fatalities to four.

Cases were confirmed in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong province in the south, heightening fears ahead of the lunar new year holiday, when more than 400 million people are expected to travel domestically and internationally.

State broadcaster CCTV said on Monday evening there were seven suspected cases in other parts of the country, including Shandong in the east, and the south-western provinces of Sichuan, Guangxi and Yunnan. Five people who travelled from Wuhan were also being treated for fevers in Zhejiang province.

“People’s lives and health should be given top priority and the spread of the outbreak should be resolutely curbed,” said China’s president, Xi Jinping, weighing in on the matter for the first time.

The strain has caused alarm because of its connection to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-03. The current outbreak has spread to Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

The World Health Organization has said an animal source was “the most likely primary source” of the outbreak, with “some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts”. Researchers worry the number of infections has been severely underestimated.

The WHO said it would convene an emergency meeting in Geneva on Wednesday to discuss whether the new coronavirus constituted an international health emergency.

Xi Chen, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said the likelihood of human-to-human transmission had appeared large given how many cases were confirmed. “It’s hard to see all these cases coming from animals at the same market,” Chen said.