Wisconsin officials just confirmed a coronavirus case there - the 12th in the US
- Wisconsin has a confirmed case of the coronavirus, the state's health department told Business Insider on Wednesday.
- The case is the 12th in the United States, which also has six confirmed patients in California, two in Illinois, one in Washington, one in Arizona, and one in Massachusetts.
- The CDC said the earlier that the other 11 patients are "doing well" on Wednesday, but the agency has not commented on the case in Wisconsin.
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A patient in Wisconsin has been diagnosed with the coronavirus, the state health department told Business Insider on Wednesday. It's the 12th case in the US; the first was confirmed on January 24.
The Wisconsin patient had "a history of travel to Beijing, China, prior to becoming ill," according to the state's health department. The patient was tested at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, the department's chief medical officer, Ryan Westergaard, told the Associated Press.
The individual is isolated at home and doing well, officials added, but they declined to provide further details. Prior to the announcement, Wisconsin had been investigating 10 cases of the virus and seven had come back negative.
"The risk of getting sick from 2019 novel coronavirus in Wisconsin is very low," State Health Officer Jeanne Ayers said in a statement. "We are responding aggressively to the situation and monitoring all developments. We are committed to keeping the public fully informed and will continue to provide updates as this situation unfolds."
The coronavirus has killed nearly 500 people and infected more than 24,000 people globally since December, with the majority of cases occurring in China. The virus likely originated at a seafood market in Wuhan, China.
The outbreak has spread to 25 other countries: Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, the US, and Vietnam.
In addition to the Wisconsin patient, the US has 11 other confirmed cases: six people in California; a husband and wife in Chicago, Illinois; a man in his 30s in Washington state; one patient in Arizona; and one in Massachusetts. The CDC said all of those patients were "doing well" on Wednesday.
In two of the cases, the virus was transmitted human-to-human among family members.
The coronavirus family is a large group of viruses that typically affect the respiratory tract. Coronaviruses can lead to illnesses such as the common cold, pneumonia, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which sickened 8,000 people and killed 774 from November 2002 to July 2003.
People with the new coronavirus - known as 2019-nCoV - have reported symptoms like fevers, coughing, and difficulty breathing. Most of the people who have died were elderly or otherwise unwell, Chinese officials have said.
The risk in the US is still low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Scientists have published over 50 studies on Wuhan coronavirus in the last 3 weeks. They learned that 75,800 people in Wuhan could be infected.