106 persons are now dead in China while more than 4000 are infected, majority being in Asian countries. There are more than 60 cases in twelve countries across the world, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has refused to grant the coronavirus an international epidemic status. A resemblance to the Ebola cases in 2014 when the WHO took months to make a declaration. By then, Ebola had wiped out 11,000 people and became an endemic in many African nations.
However, Chinese authorities have decided to construct a special quarantine hospital within six days that will include all the laboratory and surgical equipment required to cater for coronavirus patients. Since the outbreak, the hospitals in Wuhan has been overstretched and this will not be the first time China will be embarking on a massive construction scheduled to complete in a short time. The same was done in Beijing in 2003 to tackle the SARS outbreak.
Additionally, America is sending out a chartered flight to evacuate US diplomats and citizens.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was confident in China’s ability to control and contain the spread of the coronavirus, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Germany has since reported its first case of the novel coronavirus in the southern region of Bavaria, the Bavarian health ministry said on Monday, January 27, 2020. The man is under surveillance in an isolated ward.
“A man in the Starnberg region has been infected with the new coronavirus,” a spokesman for the ministry said.
According to reports, Canada has told its citizens to avoid travels to China as a second case emerges.
