Washington (AFP)

U.S. health officials reported on Monday that they had sequenced the genomes of two of the first cases in the U.S. of the new Chinese coronavirus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, and confirmed that the virus was the same as that detected in China.

A senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also announced that the United States is to imminently change the country's virus testing and screening guidelines, which are now limited to travelers only. coming from Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic.

"All of the footage we extracted is similar to the one China originally published a few weeks ago," said Nancy Messonnier, CDC director of respiratory diseases, during a conference call.

"This means that at present, according to the analysis of the data available from the CDC, it seems that the (virus) has not mutated," she added.

All passengers coming from Wuhan are subject to arrival checks at five American airports, but flights have been suspended in the Chinese city, which means that fewer and fewer passengers coming from Wuhan, via a stopover, are controlled.

At the same time, the epidemic reached other Chinese provinces. China also said infected people could spread the disease before symptoms of fever and difficulty breathing appear.

These developments mean that the current criteria for checks on arrival in the United States have undoubtedly become obsolete.

"I think our travel recommendations will change in the coming days," said Nancy Messonnier. "There should be an announcement and a decision by tomorrow (Tuesday)".

However, the United States continues to rate the risk to Americans as low.

"At this point, the virus is not spreading in the United States," said the official.

The number of confirmed cases in the country is five since Sunday. One hundred and ten patients are or have been tested in 26 states, including five positive and 32 negative.

The time between the decision to test a suspect case and the result is around a day, as the blood samples are currently to be sent and analyzed in Atlanta, CDC headquarters.

© 2020 AFP