Pak suspends direct flights to China cities

Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Thursday suspended direct flights to and from China over the coronavirus epidemic.

Officials said direct flights to and from China will remain suspended till February 2. Other major airlines that have suspended or pared back services to China include British Airways, German flag carrier Lufthansa, American Airlines, KLM and United.

According to the World Health Organisation, the virus has already killed 170 people. Chinese authorities have taken extraordinary steps to arrest the virus s spread, including effectively locking down more than 50 million people in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province.

The contagion has spread to nearly every corner of China, with remote Tibet reporting its first case on Thursday.

It has triggered fears in part due to its striking similarity to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03, which also began in China and eventually killed nearly 800 people worldwide.

Meanwhile, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health, Dr Zafar Mirza on

Friday directed to allocate separate wards in all the national hospitals for patients suspected of caronavirus.

Chairing a meeting of the Emergency Core Committee on Coronavirus in Islamabad, he said the committee and the Emergency Operation Cell, established at Ministry of Health, are monitoring the situation regarding the disease.

Steps are being taken on war footings under the directives of the Prime Minister Imran Khan to ensure safety from coronavirus, he asserted.

People belonging to different fields of life including Pakistan Army participated in the meeting and deliberated on the strategy to prevent outbreak of this virus in Pakistan.

Earlier, World Health Organization had declared a global emergency over the new coronavirus, as China reported Friday the death toll had climbed to 213 with nearly 10,000 infections.

The UN health agency based in Geneva had initially downplayed the threat posed by the disease, but revised its risk assessment after crisis talks.

"Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva.