US confirms first case of deadly Chinese virus as global fears grow
China threatens citizens who hide evidence of the disease after transmission between humans is proven
AMERICA last night confirmed its first case of the potentially deadly coronavirus that has broken out in China, killing at least six people.
Yesterday, a traveller who flew into the US from China was diagnosed in Seattle with the Wuhan coronavirus, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman.
Meanwhile, Asian countries have heightened screening at airports.
Chinese officials have issued a stark warning, saying anyone found covering up information about the virus will be “nailed on a pillar of shame”.
The warning comes as the case count surpassed 300 in China’s fast-moving coronavirus outbreak that started in the south-eastern city of Wuhan.
As of last night, six people had died from the new pneumonia-type illness and authorities have confirmed for the first time that the virus can spread between humans.
Today, a World Health Organisation panel will meet to determine if the outbreak should be deemed an international health emergency. The agency has only used the label a handful of times, including during the H1N1 – or swine flu – pandemic of 2009 and the current long-running Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a bid to head off accusations that the government has failed to be transparent about the disease, the Chinese political body responsible for law and order warned citizens and lower-level officials yesterday against hiding new cases. “Anyone who puts the face of politicians before the interests of the people will be the sinner of a millennium,” it said in a social media post.
Cases have already spread from Wuhan to other Chinese cities, including Beijing, and across international borders. Thailand, Japan and South Korea have all detected the coronavirus in travellers from Wuhan.
At four airports in Thailand, authorities introduced mandatory thermal scans of passengers arriving from highrisk areas of China. Enhanced screening measures have also been set up at airports in Australia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Singapore and the US.
But with information slow to trickle out of China, memories of the government’s attempts to cover up the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2002-03 have resurfaced. The Sars coronavirus killed nearly 800 people and infected more than 8,000 worldwide after originating in China.
Some experts warn that the new virus may have spread more widely than official estimates show. Yesterday, a study by infectious disease experts at Hong Kong University showed that 1,343 people in Wuhan and 116 in 20 other Chinese cities had been infected.
Imperial College London has said the number of people infected could be closer to 1,700. Prof Neil Ferguson said: “We need to be concerned and we need to understand it rapidly. Six deaths out of 300 is a worrying proportion, [making] it really quite a severe respiratory infection.”