Asia, Africa ramp up measures
Confirmed cases
SEOUL — Asian and African countries, facing the increasing number of novel coronavirus infections, are imposing more drastic countermeasures to fight the outbreak.
South Korea warned on Thursday that it will deport foreigners, while its citizens could face jail, if they violate self-quarantine rules, after a surge in imported coronavirus cases.
For the second day in a row, South Korea reported more imported cases than domestic ones. Of the 104 new cases reported on Thursday, 57 were from abroad, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, taking its total number to 9,241.
Foreign nationals will be forcibly repatriated and citizens who violate the rules could be jailed for up to a year and fined about $8,100, said Yoon Tae-ho, director-general for public health policy at the health ministry.
In Japan, the government on Thursday set up a special task force to handle the crisis while warning of a high risk of more cases, as the country’s total number of domestic cases was reported to be 1,373.
told Prime Minister Shizo Abe that there is a high risk of the coronavirus spreading widely,” Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said after meeting Abe and Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura.
Nishimura said Abe told him to “proceed swiftly with setting up the government task force” based on Kato’s report. But the government was not yet considering declaring a state of emergency, he added.
Makeshift medical center
In Iran, the army on Wednesday opened a makeshift medical center with 2,000 beds at a large fairground in Teheran as part of its intensified efforts to combat the raging pandemic, Tasnim New Agency said.
Iran also imposed an intercity travel ban on Thursday amid fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections in the Middle East’s worst-hit country.
Hossein Zolfaghari, a member of Iran’s national headquarters for fighting the coronavirus, urged those who had traveled during the Iranian New Year holidays to “immediately return to their cities”, adding that violators would face legal consequences.
The Islamic republic had reported 29,406 confirmed cases and the death toll was up to 2,234 on Thursday.
In India, the country’s central bank and major lenders are considering shutting down most branches across the country to prevent tens of thousands of employees from getting infected with the coronavirus, as the death toll rose to 13 and confirmed cases to 649 on Thursday morning.
Egypt and its capital Cairo, a mega-city home to some 20 million people, shut down on Wednesday evening as authorities launched a night-time curfew to tackle the spread of the virus.
With 456 confirmed case, Egypt has stepped up measures aimed at preventing the spread of the virus — closing airports and gyms, as well as suspending classes at schools and universities until midApril. Restaurants are restricted to just delivering food.
Meanwhile, West African countries are using community health systems set up after the Ebola outbreak to detect and prevent the spread of the virus in remote areas, health experts said on Wednesday.
The community workers, who were trained to proactively check for symptoms when Ebola swept the region, are now being retrained to spot the signs of coronavirus and educate communities.
among the 104 new infections reported in the South Korea on Thursday were from abroad.