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 By S�bastien RICCI Wuhan, China (AFP) Jan 29, 2020
The US and Japan airlifted hundreds of their nationals from the centre of China's new virus epidemic on Wednesday, as the number of those killed by the disease rose sharply to 132. More than 50 million people have been locked down in and around Wuhan, the central industrial city where the outbreak first began, in a bid by authorities to stop an infection that has since spread to more than 15 countries. Thousands of foreigners are among those effectively trapped in the area, and numerous countries are devising plans to get their nationals out. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the virus a "demon" during talks on Tuesday with the head of the World Health Organization in Beijing, and pledged a "timely" release of updates about the crisis. But the United States questioned Beijing's transparency and urged the country to show "more cooperation" amid mounting global fears about a novel coronavirus that has infected more than 5,300 people in China and dozens more elsewhere. Figures from Hubei province on Wednesday morning showed the number of cases in the city had soared by over 800 in the past 24 hours, with another 25 deaths confirmed at the epicentre of the contagion. A further death was reported outside Hubei, taking the nationwide death toll to 132. The number of confirmed cases across the country stood at nearly 6,000. - Travel warnings - As concern about the outbreak continued to mount, a plane carrying around 200 Japanese citizens evacuated from Wuhan landed in Tokyo on Wednesday morning. Medical professionals on board the flight were expected to carry out health checks before the passengers could disembark but there were no plans to quarantine them. Around 650 Japanese nationals in the Wuhan area had said they wanted to be repatriated and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo would take "every possible measure" to bring them home. A US charter flight also left the city on Wednesday with some two hundred American citizens onboard including staffers from the local US consulate. "These travellers will be carefully screened and monitored to protect their health, as well as the health and safety of their fellow Americans," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. The European Union will fly its citizens out aboard two French planes this week, and South Korea was due to do the same. Several other countries were assessing their options. Several countries, most recently Australia, have urged their citizens to "reconsider" all travel to China. - 'Serious struggle' - Xi said his country was waging a "serious struggle" against the epidemic, speaking during talks with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Beijing on Tuesday. China has extended its Lunar New Year holiday to keep people indoors as much as possible and suspended a wide range of train services. Following the Xi-Tedros talks, the WHO said the two sides had agreed to send international experts to China "as soon as possible... to guide global response efforts". "Stopping the spread of this virus both in China and globally is WHO's highest priority," Tedros said. Until Tuesday, all reported cases in more than a dozen countries had involved people who had been in or around Wuhan, but Japan and Germany have reported the first human-to-human infections outside China. Germany now has four confirmed cases, all of them employees at a Bavarian firm recently visited by a Chinese colleague, health officials said. Some experts have praised Beijing for being more reactive and open about the new virus compared to its handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2002-2003. But others say local officials had earlier been more focused on projecting stability than responding to the outbreak when it began to spread earlier this month. Since then, the number of cases has soared. The United States has said it is working on a vaccine, but that would take months to develop. Scientists in Australia meanwhile said they had grown the virus from a patient sample in a move that they said would provide international laboratories with crucial information to help combat the virus.
Plane carrying Japanese evacuees from Wuhan lands in Tokyo The plane landed at Haneda airport around 8:45am (1145 GMT), with officials saying 206 people were on board. Airport workers wearing face masks immediately began unloading luggage from the aircraft, and several buses pulled up, but there was no immediate sign of passengers leaving the plane. Ambulances could be seen nearby. Earlier, health ministry officials said medical professionals on board the flight would carry out health checks but that there were no plans to quarantine the arriving passengers. The flight arrived as several countries work to extract their nationals from Wuhan, with an American charter flight also leaving the city on Wednesday, bound for an airport in the Los Angeles area. The flight chartered by the Japanese government had arrived in Wuhan overnight carrying emergency relief supplies including 15,000 masks, 50,000 pairs of gloves and 8,000 protective glasses, the foreign ministry said. Around four medical officials were also on board to monitor returning passengers. Government officials said Tuesday that evacuees would be asked to fill out a health questionnaire and that anyone displaying symptoms on the flight would be taken to hospital immediately upon arrival in Japan. - Asked to avoid crowds - All passengers were expected to be tested for the new strain of coronavirus, which has killed more than 100 people and infected thousands. The evacuees would be asked to remain at home and avoid crowds at least until the results of the test were known, officials said. Those who live in and near Tokyo will be allowed to head home, while those living further away will be taken to local hotels initially. Japan's health ministry has so far confirmed seven cases of the virus in the country, including one man who had not travelled to China. The man from the western region of Nara had driven a tour bus with tourists from Wuhan twice in January, the health ministry said. Japan's foreign ministry says around 650 Japanese nationals in the Wuhan area have asked to be repatriated, and local media reported Wednesday that Tokyo was preparing to send a second charter flight, possibly later Wednesday, to collect more people. Chinese authorities said Wednesday that the number of confirmed deaths in the outbreak has risen to 132 nationwide, with the confirmed total of infections now nearly 6,000. More than 50 million people have been locked down in and around Wuhan, the central industrial city where the outbreak first began, in a bid by authorities to stop an infection that has since spread to other cities in China and to other countries. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the virus a "demon" during talks on Tuesday with the head of the World Health Organization in Beijing, and pledged a "timely" release of updates about the crisis.
China confirms 5,974 virus cases, exceeding SARS; 25 new deaths Wuhan, China (AFP) Jan 29, 2020 The number of confirmed cases in the new virus outbreak in China reached 5,974 on Wednesday, overtaking the number of people infected in the mainland by the SARS epidemic in 2002-3. China's national health commission reported more than 1,400 confirmed new cases on Wednesday, as the death toll rose to 132. There were 5,327 confirmed cases in mainland China during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic. That outbreak killed more than 770 people globally, including 349 in mainland China ... read more
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