TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Three Japanese evacuated from Wuhan have new coronavirus
Three Japanese citizens among more than 200 on a first evacuation flight from China have tested positive for a new strain of coronavirus, Japan's health minister said Thursday.
Change Size
An Ambulance departs following the arrival of the second charter flight from the Chinese city of Wuhan, which was arranged by Japan's government to evacuate its citizens, at Haneda airport in Tokyo on January 30, 2020. - Three Japanese evacuated from the epicentre of a deadly new coronavirus outbreak have tested positive for the illness, the government said January 30 as it faced criticism for the country's minimal quarantine procedures. (AFP/STR / JIJI PRESS )
T
hree Japanese citizens among more than 200 on a first evacuation flight from China have tested positive for a new strain of coronavirus, Japan's health minister said Thursday, AFP reported.
The three people arrived in Japan on Wednesday, on the first flight to evacuate Japanese citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a deadly outbreak that has killed 170 people and injected thousands.
The three evacuees raise the number of cases in Japan so far to 11, including two people who appear to have contracted the virus without traveling to China.
"In addition to the eight cases, among the people who returned from Wuhan yesterday, infection [with the new coronavirus] has been confirmed in one person with symptoms and two other people who have no symptoms," Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told parliament.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told lawmakers that the three returnees would be treated in a special medical facility.
The new cases come after authorities on Wednesday confirmed a second instance in which a person tested positive for the virus without having traveled to Japan.
The woman was a tour guide who worked on the same bus as a driver who also contracted the virus without traveling to China.
The driver told authorities he had driven two groups of tourists from Wuhan earlier in January and developed symptoms afterwards.
"The eighth case is the second suspected incident of human-to-human transmission in Japan," Kato said.
"We are in a truly new situation."
Meanwhile, Reuters reported a plane of Japanese evacuees from the virus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan arrived in Tokyo on Thursday as the total number of confirmed deaths from the newly identified pathogen in the country rose by 38 to 170 and infections also jumped.
Chinese health authorities said there were 7,711 confirmed cases of infection as of the end of Wednesday, mostly in Hubei province where the death toll rose by 37 to 162.
Infections have been reported in at least 15 other countries and, with the appearance of the first case in Tibet, in every province and region of mainland China.
The World Health Organization's (WHO) Emergency Committee is set to reconvene behind closed doors in Geneva later on Thursday to decide whether the rapid spread of the virus now constitutes a global emergency.
"In the last few days the progress of the virus, especially in some countries, especially human-to-human transmission, worries us," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Wednesday, naming Germany, Vietnam and Japan.
"Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak."
A second chartered flight with Japanese evacuees from Wuhan, which is under virtual lockdown, landed in Japan with nine people showing symptoms of fever or coughing, broadcaster NHK reported.
The United States flew about 200 Americans out of Wuhan, capital of Hubei where most of the cases are concentrated. They were being screened on arrival in California. France, Britain and Canada also have organized evacuations.
The effects of the virus are already weighing heavily on China's economy, the world's second-biggest, with companies cutting corporate travel and tourists canceling trips.
Various airlines are cutting flights, from British Airways and Lufthansa to Air Canada and American Airlines.
