Coronavirus: US faces ‘tremendous public health threat’ as imported infections rise; World Health Organisation to start Wuhan inquiry
- Public health agency says the number of US infections stands at 34, including 21 ‘repatriated cases’
- Medical experts are set to travel to Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicentre, on Saturday, WHO secretary general says
The United States – so far free of community spread of the deadly coronavirus – faces a “tremendous public health threat” as the number of imported infections in the country rises, a leading US health official said on Friday.
Nancy Messonnier of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the number of infections in the US stood at 34. The figure includes 13 infections classified as US cases and 21 “repatriated cases”.
Of the repatriated patients, 18 were aboard the 3,700-passenger Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan. More than 600 people on the vessel have been sickened by Covid-19 – the disease the virus causes – and two have died. The 18 patients from the ship were among 329 Americans flown home on a government-chartered plane this week.
“Let me be clear that we are not seeing community spread in the United States yet, but it is very possible, even likely, that it may eventually happen,” said Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases.
“Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus into the US,” Messonnier said. “This buys us more time to prepare our communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread. This new virus represents a tremendous public health threat.”
Messonnier said the CDC believed Washington’s “aggressive travel precautions” – which include restrictions that virtually ban entry to mainland-based Chinese passport holders – were working, as the US was still not seeing evidence of the “community spread” that has hit several Asian countries.