GLOBAL EMERGENCY
SHANGHAI/BEIJING: The United States warned Americans not to travel to China as the death toll from a new virus reached 213 yesterday and the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a global health emergency.
In a new travel advisory, the State Department raised its warning for China to the same level as Afghanistan and Iraq, saying on its website, ‘‘Do not travel to China due to novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan’’.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament the government had decided to raise its infectious disease advisory level for China, urging citizens to avoid nonurgent trips.
Japan’s advisory for China’s central province of Hubei, where the virus first emerged, is one level higher, advising citizens not to travel there.
Beijing has not commented on the US travel warning, but in response to the WHO declaration, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said China had taken ‘‘the most comprehensive and rigorous prevention and control measures’’.
‘‘We have full confidence and capability to win this fight against the epidemic,’’ spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
WHO directorgeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the body ‘‘doesn’t recommend — and actually opposes’’ curbs on travel or trade with China.
The death toll in Hubei stood at 204. There were 9692 infections nationwide by yesterday, China’s health authorities said. As many as 129 cases have been reported in 22 other countries and regions, but no deaths outside China.
International alarm over the new coronavirus that surfaced in December in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan is driven by its rapid spread and the fact that doctors cannot yet tell how deadly or contagious it is.
All air traffic between Italy and China will stop, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said, taking a more drastic step than most countries, after Italy announced its first confirmed cases in two Chinese tourists.
More airlines have stopped flying to mainland China, including Air France KLM SA, British Airways, Germany’s Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic. Others including Air New Zealand have cut flights.
Foreign governments evacuated citizens from Hubei to hold them in quarantine.
A plane with British citizens aboard left from Wuhan yesterday, Britain’s embassy in China said.
Japan, which has 14 confirmed cases, said it would bring forward its date to designate the coronavirus an ‘‘infectious disease’’, as a third charter flight arrived, ferrying citizens home.
Such a designation will permit compulsory hospitalisation and use of public funds for treatment, among other measures.
The first of four planned flights taking South Koreans home landed yesterday, as tension simmered over the location of quarantine centres that nearby residents called too close for comfort.
The two Koreas opened a new hotline between Seoul and Pyongyang after agreeing to temporarily close a joint liaison office in a Northern border city until virus concerns ease, the South said.
Stock markets steadied slightly yesterday after the WHO praised China’s efforts to contain the virus.
‘‘The fear of contagion risk is already evident in global financial markets,’’ Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.
China’s statistics show that just over 2% of infected people have died, suggesting the virus may be less deadly than the coronaviruses responsible for the 200203 outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), and an episode of Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers).
But economists fear its impact could be bigger than Sars, which killed about 800 people and cost the global economy an estimated $US33 billion ($NZ50.9 billion), as China’s share of the world economy is now far greater.