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China virus: Asia takes no chances as WHO meeting emerges

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coronavirus



Countries around the Asia-Pacific and beyond are stepping up their defences against a new coronavirus that emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

It is said to have infected at-least 44o people on the mainland as well as a handful of others overseas.

Cases of what is currently being called, 2019-nCOV, has now been confirmed in South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Macau and the United States.

“Given travel patterns and increased testing, more cases of 2019-nCOV should be expected in other parts of China and possibly other countries in the coming days,” a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) told newsmen.

“WHO encourages all countries to continue preparedness activities.”

Asia, which was hit hard in the 2002-03 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome(SARS), which also started in  China has caused authorities to take no chances.

Measures, including thermal screening, have been introduced at airports in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus, with checks targeted at passengers coming from Wuhan.

“It’s a matter for each country to look at the frequency of travel from Wuhan and adjust to that”. Raina Macintyre, who heads the Biosecurity Programme at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales, told newsmen.

Direct flights between China and the rest of the world have expanded rapidly over the past 20 years, with Wuhan’s 11 million people now able to fly direct to destinations in Europe and the US as well as cities closer to home, like Seoul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

 

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