Health officials hunting source of first coronavirus case spread within UK
A man from Surrey has become the first person in the UK to be infected with coronavirus without leaving the country.
Health officials are trying to discover how the man caught the virus despite not having been abroad recently, which is how the other 19 UK cases occurred.
Medical officers are attempting to trace people who have been contact with him.
The person, whose identity remains unknown, was transferred to a specialist NHS infection centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in central London.
Meanwhile the Haslemere Health Centre in Surrey has been closed for “deep cleaning”.
The Department of Health said the coronavirus had been passed on within the UK and that the original source was “unclear”.
It said there was no “immediately identifiable link” to overseas travel.
England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said “contact tracing” had begun and that it was not clear whether the patient had contracted it “directly or indirectly” from someone who had recently returned from abroad.
UK hits 20 coronavirus cases
It comes after a further four cases were confirmed in the UK yesterday, with two people from England and one from each of Wales and Northern Ireland contracting the virus.
The two based in England had recently returned from Iran, while the others are thought to have returned to the country from Italy.
The government is set to hold an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday to discuss the outbreak.
It is the first meeting regarding the virus that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to chair, with health secretary Matt Hancock having chaired previous discussions.
Johnson insisted it was Downing Street’s “top priority” and said people were “right to be concerned” but that the “best advice” to prevent spreading the virus was washing hands with hot soap and water.