The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Illinois public health officials confirmed Thursday the nation’s first person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus, CNBC reports.
According to the report, the new patient is the spouse of the Chicago woman who brought the infection back from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, CDC officials said during a press briefing.
The virus, which emerged Dec. 31, has already spread to more people than the 2003 SARS epidemic that sickened roughly 8,100 people across the globe over nine months. The transmission makes the U.S. at least the fifth country where the infection is now spreading through human-to-human contact, including China.
As of Thursday morning, 8,130 cases were confirmed in mainland China alone, according to Chinese state media, and more than 100 cases were confirmed elsewhere around the world — bringing the global total to at least 8,240.
