Traveller held for virus check

A TRAVELLER was being urgently tested in Sydney for the deadly coronavirus last night and doctors expressed fears others may be incubating the disease without knowing it.

One of the final flights allowed out of Wuhan — the Chinese city that is ground zero for the deadly new virus — landed in Sydney yesterday.

NSW’s chief health officer Kerry Chant confirmed all passengers were cleared on arrival by doctors, but one person from a previous flight was being investigated for coronavirus.

“We have one case that is currently under investigation, we are able to rapidly undertake testing of cases that come to our attention and either exclude or confirm those cases in a very short time frame,” Ms Chant said.

Commonwealth chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said there could be people in Australia without symptoms who are still carrying the disease, which has an incubation period of five to six days.

“It is always possible that … people could be incubating the virus on that plane,” he said.

Every health facility in the country has been given information to help them identify people who may have carried the new strain after arriving back in Australia.

At least 17 people have been killed and 570 infected since the virus outbreak in December, with cases detected in the US, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

Symptoms of the virus include a cough, sore throat, fever, runny nose or headache.

Prof Murphy said every state public health department had a designated isolation facility in anticipation of discovering suspected cases.

It is always possible that … people could be incubating the virus on that plane

BRENDAN MURPHY