The World Health Organization announced on Thursday that it was declaring the deadly coronavirus outbreak to be a global health emergency.

The warning, known as a ‘public health emergency of international concern’, is the highest alert the UN health agency can give.

Just one week ago, the organization decided to hold off the declaration as there was no evidence of human-to-human evidence outside of China.

This has changed with the first person-to-person case of coronavirus being confirmed in the US after a man in Chicago was infected from his wife, who traveled to China.

The man’s wife, who is in her 60s, became the second American after she returned from a trip to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Her husband has now tested positive for the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed on Thursday.

It is the first case of person-to-person spread of the virus in the US and not from someone who had traveled to China and picked up the virus there.

This comes on the heels of news that the World Health Organization has finally declared the coronavirus outbreak to be an international public health emergency.