A German man who contracted coronavirus from a Chinese work colleague is thought to be the first person in Europe to catch the disease via human transmission, health officials have said.
The 33-year-old infected man has not been to China or Wuhan - the city where the strain first emerged in December - but had been in contact with a Chinese colleague at a work training session who later became unwell and tested positive for the virus.
The flu-like strain has so far killed 106 and infected more than 2,800 people and is spread though coughs and sneezes via droplets.
Speaking at a press conference, Bavarian State head of health and food safety, Andreas Zapf, said the co-worker was a woman from Shanghai who “started to feel sick” on a fight home on January 23.
Her parents from the Wuhan region had visited her a few days before her trip.
The German man had attended a training session given by his Chinese colleague on January 21 at the office of a car parts supplier Webasto in Stockdorf in Bavaria.
He tested positive for the virus, which has an incubation period of one to 14 days, on Monday evening.
Webasto confirmed that both the visiting colleague and the infected German man were employees of the company.
CEO Holger Engelmann said: “The health of our employees and their protection is most important to us. Both colleagues are doing quite well, considering the circumstances.
“They are both treated in hospital and we are in contact with them.
“We are in close exchange with the relevant authorities and inform our employees regularly about the next steps. It is important to us, to inform our employees in a transparent and comprehensive way.”
In light of the coronavirus detection, Webasto has banned staff travel to China for the next two weeks.
It has also said that all employees based in the Stockdorf office are free to work from home this week.
Health officials are checking people that the two infected workers have been in contact with recently, including colleagues and family members.
Health Minister Jens Spahn tweeted to say that it was "expected" that the virus would reach Germany, and the case in Bavaria showed Germany was "well prepared".
Confirmation of any sustained human-to-human spread of the virus outside of China, as well as any documented deaths, would bolster the case for reconvening the World Health Organisation's Emergency Committee to consider again whether to declare a public health emergency of international concern.
The independent panel last week twice declined to declare an international emergency.
Outside of China there have now been 45 confirmed cases in 13 countries, with no deaths so far, the WHO's spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
The WHO said a case in Vietnam involved human-to-human transmission outside China and a Japanese official has said there was a suspected case of human-to-human transmission there too.
