An outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness that started in the city of Wuhan in China has put health authorities on high alert around the world. The new coronavirus—named 2019-nCoV—is thought to have originated in the food market of the central China metropolis and has since infected more than 4,000 people worldwide.
Here are the latest updates.
IMAGE: A worker in protective suit uses a thermometer to check the temperature of a man while he enters the Xizhimen subway station, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Beijing, China. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins
1.
Three persons have been kept under observation at an isolation ward of RML Hospital in New Delhi for a possible exposure to the novel coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday. The three — all men aged between 24 and 48 — were admitted on Monday and their samples have been sent for testing, Dr Minakshi Bhardwaj, Medical Superintendent of RML Hospital, said.
2.
Till Monday, a total of 33,552 passengers arriving in India from China in 155 flights have been screened.
3.
China has reported 24 more deaths from coronavirus epidemic, taking the number of fatalities to 106 as the confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the outbreak stand at 4,515, the health authorities announced on Tuesday.
4.
The death toll from a coronavirus outbreak in China has soared to 106 while nearly 1,300 new cases have been confirmed, authorities said on Tuesday.
5.
As of now, 4,200 confirmed cases of the virus have been reported from China. China’s top cities of Beijing and Shanghai reported their first deaths on late Monday first from the novel coronavirus.
6.
Sri Lanka has suspended its policy of granting visa on arrival for Chinese travellers on Tuesday, a day after the health authorities detected the country’s first coronavirus infection. Sudath Suraweera, the chief epidemiologist of the country’s health ministry, said on Monday that a 40-year-old Chinese woman was found positive for the virus.
7.
Health authorities in Germany’s southern Bavarian region have confirmed the country’s first case of the deadly coronavirus spreading in China. France was the first European country to be affected by the outbreak, which has reported three known cases of the virus.
8.
The United States has urged its citizens to reconsider travelling to China amid the coronavirus outbreak.
9.
The World Health Organisation on Monday admitted an error in its assessment of the global risk of a deadly virus in China, saying it was “high” and not “moderate”, reports said. The Geneva-based WHO in its latest situation report said the risk was “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”
