Virus reaches Australia
Four cases of the deadly coronavirus have been confirmed in Australia, as the death toll rises in China.
The virus has now appeared as far away as Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, France and the United States.
Hong Kong yesterday declared a virus emergency, shutting schools for two weeks after the Lunar New Year holiday.
France said that three people had fallen ill with the virus – the disease’s first appearance in Europe. And the US reported its second case, a Chicago woman in her 60s who was hospitalised in isolation after returning from China.
In Australia, authorities are scrambling to contact passengers who shared flights from China with the patients. All arrivals from China are being stopped at airports and given information about symptoms and what to do if they feel unwell.
Three men, aged 35, 43 and 53, tested positive to the respiratory condition in New South Wales yesterday and are in isolation in hospital, state health authorities confirmed. Two of the men had travelled to Sydney directly from Wuhan – the Chinese city at the epicentre of the outbreak – and the third had travelled from the southern city of Shenzhen. A man aged in his 50s tested positive in a Melbourne hospital after arriving from the city of Guangzhou last week.
Experts are still learning about the virus and Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Brendan
Murphy, says it’s important people arriving from Wuhan, as well as those in close contact with them, look out for symptoms of fever, cough, sore throat, vomiting and difficulty breathing.
‘‘We don’t know exactly how long symptoms take to show after a person has been infected but there is an incubation period and some patients will have very mild symptoms,’’ Murphy said.
In Wuhan, Hubei province, authorities have banned most vehicles, including private cars, from the downtown area, in a further bid to limit spread of the illness as the number of cases rose to 1287, and the death toll to 41. The latest tally comes from 29 provinces and cities across China and includes 237 patients in serious condition.
State media said yesterday that only vehicles authorised to carry supplies and for other needs would be permitted. A fleet of 6000 taxis has been mobilised for essential travel.
Public transportation was shut down earlier this week, as well as flights and trains out of Wuhan, as China locked down the city of 11 million people.
China added three cities to those cut off from transportation, bringing the total to 16 in Hubei province and covering a population greater than that of New York, London, Paris and Moscow combined.
The Chinese military dispatched 450 medical staff, some with experience in past outbreaks including SARS and Ebola, to Wuhan, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The National Health Commission said yesterday that it is bringing in medical teams from outside Hubei to help handle the outbreak, a day after videos circulating online showed throngs of frantic people in masks lined up for examinations and complaints that family members had been turned away at hospitals that were at capacity.
The Ministry of Commerce is coordinating an effort to supply more than 2 million masks and other products from elsewhere in the country, Xinhua said.
Wuhan is throwing up a 1000-bed prefab hospital to deal with the crisis, to be completed by February 3.
The new virus comes from a large family of what are known as coronaviruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold. Symptoms include cough and fever and in more severe cases shortness of breath and pneumonia, which can be fatal.
SARS, which started in China in late 2002 and killed more than 750 people, was a coronavirus.
It is not clear how lethal the new coronavirus is, or even whether it is as dangerous as the ordinary flu, which kills tens of thousands of people every year in the US alone.
The rapid increase in reported deaths and illnesses does not necessarily mean the crisis is getting worse. It could instead reflect better monitoring and reporting of the newly discovered virus.
In France, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said the nation should brace for more cases.
‘‘We see how difficult it is in today’s world to close the frontiers. In reality, it’s not possible,’’ she said.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention likewise said it was expecting more Americans to be diagnosed with the virus. The agency believed the immediate risk to the public was low, but the situation was evolving rapidly.