"This is the second instance of person-to-person spread in the United States", CDC National Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Nancy Messonnier said. "We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread among close contacts, and we continue to expect this will happen given the explosive nature of this outbreak in China."
Messonnier said that an infected resident of California passed the virus on to a close household contact. Messonnier noted that the United States had 11 confirmed infection cases.
195 US citizens, evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, have been placed under federal quarantine and will remain at a military base in southern California until mid-February.
The US State Department has warned Americans to avoid all travel to China due to the rapidly spreading outbreak. The decision was made after the World Health Organization designated the novel coronavirus outbreak a global public health emergency.
Some 17,000 people in 20 countries, but mostly in China, have been infected with the novel coronavirus and 360 people have died.
