WHO says prepare for local outbreaks; China slams US control

FILE: World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland (Photo By Eric Bridiers via United States Mission Geneva/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

BEIJING — China’s death toll from a new virus rose to 259 on Saturday and a World Health Organization official said other governments need to prepare for”domestic outbreak control” if the disease spreads in their countries.

Beijing criticized Washington’s order barring entry to most foreigners who visited China in the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, South Korea and India flew hundreds of their citizens out of Wuhan, the city at the centre of an area where some 50 million people are prevented from leaving in a sweeping anti-virus effort. The evacuees went into a two-week quarantine. Indonesia also was sending a plane.

The number of confirmed cases in China rose to 11,791, surpassing the number in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The virus’s rapid spread in two months has prompted the World Health Organization to declare it a global emergency.

That declaration “flipped the switch” from a cautious attitude earlier to recommending governments prepare for the possibility the virus might spread, said the WHO representative in Beijing, Gauden Galea. Most cases reported so far have been people who visited China or their family members.

The agency acted out of concern for poorer countries that might not be equipped to respond, said Galea. Such a declaration calls for a co-ordinated international response and can bring more money and resources.

WHO noted in its declaration Thursday it was especially concerned that some cases abroad involved human-to-human transmission.

“Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens,” Galea told The Associated Press.

On Friday, the United States declared a public health emergency and President Donald Trump signed an order barring entry to foreign nationals, other than immediate family of American citizens and permanent residents, who visited China within the last 14 days, which scientists say is the virus’s longest incubation period.

China criticized the U.S. controls, which it said contradicted the WHO’s appeal to avoid travel bans, and “unfriendly comments” that Beijing was failing to co-operate.

“Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way. Certainly not a gesture of goodwill,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced similar restrictions late Friday barring entry to foreigners who visited Hubei province within the past two weeks or obtained visas issued there.

WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that despite the emergency declaration there is “no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade.”

Meanwhile, the ruling Communist Party postponed the end of the Lunar New Year holiday in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, for an unspecified “appropriate extent” and appealed to the public there to stay home.

China’s increasingly drastic anti-disease controls started with the Jan. 23 suspension of plane, bus and train links to Wuhan, an industrial centre of 11 million people. The lockdown has spread to surrounding cities.

The holiday, China’s busiest annual travel season, ends Sunday in the rest of the country following a three-day extension to postpone the return to factories and offices by hundreds of millions of workers. The official Xinhua News Agency said people in Hubei who work outside the province also were given an extended holiday.

The party decision “highlighted the importance of prevention and control of the epidemic among travellers,” Xinhua said.

Americans returning from China will be allowed into the country, but will face screening and are required to undertake 14 days of self-screening. Those returning from Hubei province will be subject to a 14-day quarantine.

Beginning Sunday, the United States will direct flights from China to seven major airports where passengers can be screened.

Also Friday, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines suspended all flights between the United States and China. Other carriers including British Airways, Finnair and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific also have cancelled or cut back service to mainland China.

The U.S. order followed a travel advisory for Americans to consider leaving China. Japan and Germany also advised against non-essential travel to China and Britain did as well, except for Hong Kong and Macao.

Singapore, a popular tourism and shopping destination, barred Chinese travellers, becoming the first Southeast Asian nation to do so.

Meanwhile, a plane carrying Indians from Wuhan landed Saturday in New Delhi. The government said they would be quarantined for two weeks in a facility set up in a nearby city, Manesar.

South Korea’s second evacuation flight landed in Seoul with 330 people from Wuhan. They were to be screened for fever before being taken to two quarantine centres.

South Korea also reported its 12th virus case, which appeared to be a human-to-human transmission.

Since China informed WHO about the new virus in late December, at least 23 countries have reported cases, as scientists race to understand how exactly the virus is spreading and how severe it is.

Both the new virus and SARS are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that can cause the common cold. Experts say there is significant evidence the new virus is spreading among people in China.

Although scientists expect to see limited transmission of the virus between people with family or other close contact, they are concerned about cases of infection spreading to people who might have less exposure.

In Japan, a tour guide and bus driver became infected after escorting two tour groups from Wuhan. In Germany, five employees of a German auto parts supplier became ill after a Chinese colleague visited, including two who had no direct contact with the woman. She showed no symptoms until her flight back to China.

On Saturday, Japan reported its 17th case, a woman in her 20s who also worked as a guide for Wuhan tourists on the same bus as the two other cases.

Vietnam confirmed one more case for a total of six, and Australia counted its ninth infection.

On Friday, Germany confirmed a sixth case, a child of one of the people already infected. In the United States, health officials issued a two-week quarantine order for the 195 Americans evacuated this week from Wuhan.

It was the first time a federal quarantine has been ordered since the 1960s, when one was enacted over concern about smallpox, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

None of the Americans being housed at a Southern California military base has shown signs of illness, but infected people don’t show symptoms immediately and may be able to pass on the virus before they appear sick.

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Associated Press writers Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi, Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Hau Dinh in Hanoi, Vietnam, contributed to this report.