Quarantined ship evacuated
THE black box of a Ukrainian passenger plane accidentally shot down over Iran last month is damaged but Iran will not hand it over to another country despite pressure for access, top Iranian ministers said yesterday according to state media.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week he had “impressed upon” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that a complete and independent investigation into the shooting down of the airliner had to be carried out.
Many of the 176 who perished in the disaster were Iranians with dual citizenship, which is not recognised by Iran. Canada had 57 citizens on board.
“We have a right to read the black box ourselves. We have a right to be present at any examination,” Zarif said.
“If we are supposed to give the black box to others this is something we will definitely not do”.
HUNDREDS of people began disembarking a cruise ship in Japan yesterday after being held on board for more than two weeks under quarantine, as criticism mounted of Japan’s handling of the biggest coronavirus outbreak outside China.
Even as patients trundled off the Diamond Princess cruise liner with their suitcases, Japanese authorities announced 79 new cases had been discovered on board, bringing the total above 620, well over half the known cases outside mainland China.
In China itself, the death toll from the coronavirus climbed above 2 000, but the tally of newly reported cases fell for a second day to the lowest since last month, offering hope and helping Asian shares and US stock futures rise.
China is struggling to get its economy back on track after imposing severe travel restrictions to contain a virus that emerged in the central province of Hubei late last year.
Beyond mainland China, six people have died from the disease, and governments around the world are trying to prevent it from spreading into a global epidemic.
The Diamond Princess has been quarantined at a dock at Yokohama near Tokyo since February 3, initially with 3 700 people aboard.
From yesterday, passengers who tested negative and showed no symptoms were free to leave. Around 500 were expected to disembark, with the rest of those eligible departing over the next two days. Confirmed cases were to be sent to hospital, while those who shared cabins with infected passengers may still be kept on board.
Around half of the passengers and crew are Japanese, and are free to go home once cleared to leave. Other countries have said they will fly passengers home and quarantine them on arrival. The US flew more than 300 passengers to air bases in California and Texas this week. The rapid spread of the disease aboard the ship has drawn strong criticism of the Japanese authorities, just months before Japan is due to host the Olympics.
Infectious disease specialist Kentaro Iwata of Japan’s Kobe University Hospital, who volunteered to help aboard the ship, described the infection control effort on board as “completely inadequate”, and said basic protocols had not been followed.
“There was no single professional infection control person inside the ship and there was nobody in charge of infection prevention as a professional. The bureaucrats were in charge of everything,” he said.
Iwata said that he volunteered to help out in the quarantine but was taken aback at what he saw inside. Against protocols that he’d followed in fighting Ebola, Sars, and cholera, there was no distinction between a green zone, which is free of infection, and a red zone, which is potentially contaminated by virus, he said. He relayed his concerns to officials on the boat and was told to leave, he said.
Health Minister Katsunobu Kato defended Japan’s efforts. “Unfortunately, cases of infection have emerged, but we have to the extent possible taken appropriate steps to prevent serious cases,” Kato said in a report by state broadcaster NHK.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Japan’s efforts “may not have been sufficient to prevent transmission among individuals on the ship”.
Experts raised questions about quarantine on the ship. Passengers were not confined to their rooms until February 5.
China’s National Health Commission reported 1 749 new confirmed cases, the lowest tally since January 29. Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, reported the lowest number of new infections since February 11, while outside of Hubei there were just 56 new cases, down from a peak of 890 on February 3.