A US State Department chartered aircraft to evacuate Americans in Wuhan, passes a military transport plane at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California January 29, 2020. — Reuters pic
WUHAN, Jan 30 — The nationwide death toll from China's viral epidemic has risen to 170, the government said today, with more than 1,700 new infections confirmed.
Thirty-seven of the 38 new deaths came in hard-hit Hubei province, the epicentre of a contagion that is causing mounting global fear. Another death occurred in southwestern Sichuan province, the central government said.
Foreign governments began flying their citizens out of China's Hubei province. Although the majority of cases have been in Hubei, cases have been detected elsewhere in China and in at least 15 other countries.
The World Health Organisation's (WHO) Emergency Committee is set to reconvene behind closed doors in Geneva later today to decide whether the rapid spread of the virus now constitutes a global emergency.
“In the last few days the progress of the virus, especially in some countries, especially human-to-human transmission, worries us,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference yesterday, naming Germany, Vietnam and Japan.
“Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak.”
The United States flew about 200 Americans out of Wuhan, capital of Hubei where most of the cases are concentrated. They were being screened on arrival in California. France, Britain and Canada also have organized evacuations.
The effects of the virus are already weighing heavily on China's economy, the world's second-biggest, with companies cutting corporate travel and tourists cancelling trips.
Various airlines are cutting flights, from British Airways and Lufthansa to Air Canada and American Airlines. — Agencies
