US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers who conducted web-based infection surveillance during the first 11 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic have found that nearly two-thirds of the first confirmed cases in each affected country outside of mainland China had a history of travel to Italy, China, or Iran.Findings of the study, published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, show that from Dec 31, 2019, to Mar 10, 2020, 32,459 cases were identified in 99 countries outside of mainland China.
Seventy-five of the 99 countries reported their first cases in people with a travel link to another country, with 27% of those cases originating in Italy, 22% in China, and 11% in Iran.Travel to Italy was linked with three of the