Coronavirus is declared global emergency by World Health Organization as outbreak continues to spread outside China
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WHO DECLARES CORONAVIRUS A
GLOBAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
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BREAKING NEWS: ADDITION:
England's chief medical officer has said there are two confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK. The patients, who are members of the same family, are receiving specialist medical care to prevent further spread of the deadly virus. The US has told its citizens to avoid China after the World Health Organization declared a global coronavirus emergency. The Chinese death toll has risen to 213 and total infections surpassed the SARS epidemic of two decades ago.
The US State Department raised its warning alert to the highest level, telling Americans "do not travel" to China and urged those already there to leave.
Hours earlier, the
WHO, which was criticised for initially downplaying the virus threat, changed
tack after crisis talks in Geneva.
"Our greatest
concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker
health systems," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as the emergency was
declared.
"We must all
act together now to limit further spread... We can only stop it together."
Mr Tedros said
travel and trade restrictions involving China were unnecessary.
But, with the
disease spreading to more than 20 nations, authorities, businesses and worried
people around the world were taking matters into their own hands.
Japan has urged its
citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China, following similar warnings by
Germany, Britain and other nations in recent days.
Those warnings are
not as definitive as the US directive against all travel to China.
Among the array of other extraordinary containment efforts, many major airlines this week suspended or reduced flights to China.
Mongolia also
halted cross-border traffic with its huge neighbour and Russia sealed its
remote far-eastern frontier.
Some countries
banned entry for travellers from Wuhan, the city in central Hubei province
where the virus first surfaced.
Italy and Israel
barred all flight connections with China. Impoverished Papua New Guinea went so
far as to bar all visitors from "Asian ports".
China said it planned to send charter planes to bring back Hubei residents who are now abroad, citing the "practical difficulties" that they have encountered overseas. Those from Wuhan will be returned to their quarantined city, the foreign ministry said.
The US reported its
first case of person-to-person transmission of the virus on American soil -- a
man in Chicago who got it from his wife, who had travelled to Wuhan.
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| UK Confirms First Two Cases Of Coronavirus |
In a sign of
growing global fears, more than 6,000 tourists were temporarily confined aboard
their cruise ship at an Italian port after two Chinese passengers fell ill.
They later tested negative for the coronavirus.
A pilot union in
the United States sued American Airlines to demand it halt all flights to
China.
Death toll grows
China has taken
extreme steps to stop the spread of the virus, including effectively
quarantining more than 50 million people in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei
province.
But the number of
new deaths and cases continues to swell.
The death toll was
hiked this morning to 213 after 43 new deaths, all but one in Hubei. Most
deaths have been elderly people.
That exceeds the
8,096 cases from SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) a similar pathogen
that spread to more than two dozen countries in 2002-03, and killed 774 people,
mostly in China and Hong Kong.
Another 102,000
people are under medical observation in China with possible coronavirus
symptoms.
The new virus is
believed to have emerged in a Wuhan market that sold wild game and spread by a
Lunar New Year holiday season in which hundreds of millions of Chinese-travel- domestically
or abroad.
China has suspended
school nationwide and extended the Lunar New Year holiday in- an effort to
limit people travelling.
SOURCE: RTE NEWS:
ADDITION:
Coronavirus has been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization, as the outbreak continues to spread outside China.
"The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China but what is happening in other countries," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The concern is that it could spread to countries with weaker health systems.
The death toll is now at 170 in China.
The WHO said there had been 98 cases in 18 counties outside of China, but no deaths.
There have been eight cases of human-to-human infection - in Germany, Japan, Vietnam and the United States.
Dr Ghebreyesus, speaking at the press conference in Geneva, described coronavirus as an "unprecedented outbreak" that has been met with an "unprecedented response".
He praised China's "extraordinary measures" taken to prevent it from spreading.
ADDITIONAL NEWS UPDATE:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared an international public health emergency over the coronavirus outbreak just hours before an evacuation flight to bring British nationals back to the UK is due to leave the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Health experts made the announcement on Thursday evening following a meeting of the WHO emergency committee in Geneva.
It comes as about 150 UK citizens are due to be brought back from China on a flight leaving Wuhan city at 7am local time on Friday – 11pm Thursday UK time.
Speaking to reporters, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries.
“Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it.”
Last week, WHO said it was “too early” to declare an international public health emergency but on Thursday said action was needed to help countries to prepare for the possibility of it spreading further.
The new virus has now infected more people in China than fell ill during the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak. The number of cases has jumped to 7,711, surpassing the 5,327 people diagnosed with Sars.
The death toll, which rose to 170 on Thursday morning, is lower than the 348 people who died in China from Sars.
In the UK, 161 people have tested negative for the virus as of Thursday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs also updated its travel advice on Wednesday to Irish citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China.
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