Novel Coronavirus Outbreak in Wuhan, China, 2020: Intense Surveillance Is Vital for Preventing Sustained Transmission in New Locations.

ABSTRACT: The outbreak of pneumonia originating in Wuhan, China, has generated 24,500 confirmed cases, including 492 deaths, as of 5 February 2020. The virus (2019-nCoV) has spread elsewhere in China and to 24 countries, including South Korea, Thailand, Japan and USA. Fortunately, there has only been limited human-to-human transmission outside of China. Here, we assess the risk of sustained transmission whenever the coronavirus arrives in other countries. Data describing the times from symptom onset to hospitalisation for 47 patients infected early in the current outbreak are used to generate an estimate for the probability that an imported case is followed by sustained human-to-human transmission. Under the assumptions that the imported case is representative of the patients in China, and that the

SUBMITTER: Thompson RN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7073840 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature