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Japan on Thursday reported its first case of a new coronavirus that has sickened at least 41 people in China, adding to concerns about the spread of the virus beyond China’s borders ahead of a major holiday. Japan’s Health Ministry said that a Chinese man in his 30s tested positive for the mysterious pneumonia-like coronavirus. The man, a resident of Kanagawa Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, returned to Japan on Jan. 6 after traveling to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. The man, who came down with a fever on Jan. 3, was hospitalized on Friday but was discharged five days later because he had recovered, according to the Health Ministry. (Wee, 1/15)

Eiji Hinoshita, an official at the ministry’s infectious disease section, told reporters that the man told officials he did not go to the fish market in Wuhan linked to the pneumonia outbreak, but had “close contact” with at least one person with pneumonia symptoms at a place where he stayed during the visit. Ministry officials are checking further the patient’s activity and people he had contact in China and in Japan since his return, Hinoshita said. (Yamacuchi, 1/16)

While preliminary investigations indicate that most of the patients had worked at or visited a particular seafood wholesale market, one woman may have contracted the virus from her husband, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said in a public notice. The commission said the husband, who fell ill first, worked at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Meanwhile, the wife said she hasn't had any exposure to the market. (1/15)

The threat of human-to-human transmission remains low, Chuang said, as hundreds of people, including medical professionals, have been in close contact with infected individuals and have not been infected themselves. She echoed Wuhan authorities’ assertion that there remains no definitive evidence of human-to-human transmission. (1/15)

The new strain of coronavirus, in the same family as the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), originated in Wuhan, the largest city in central China. It was confirmed Thursday to have been detected in Japan, a few days after Thailand confirmed its first case of infection. The outbreak has cast a shadow over Lunar New Year celebrations and put the rest of Asia on alert. Virologists around the world are now studying its genome sequence shared by Chinese researchers, but many questions still remain. (Gan, 1/16)