Countries with citizens in the central Chinese city that’s the epicenter of a viral outbreak are planning evacuations as the number of illnesses grow and China takes drastic measures to try to stop the spread of the virus.A look at steps being taken:
— CHINA: The government cut transportation links to and from the city of Wuhan on Jan. 22 and has since expanded those controls to several nearby cities. Anyone traveling from Wuhan is required to register and quarantine themselves for 14 days — the virus’ maximum incubation period. Hong Kong barred entry to travelers from Hubei province and told Hong Kong residents returning from the area to quarantine themselves at home.FILE – Pedestrians wear protective masks in Tokyo, Jan. 16, 2020.— JAPAN: Chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said 560 Japanese citizens are confirmed in Hubei and chartered evacuation flights are being prepared to leave “as soon as possible.”
The Japanese Embassy in Beijing said the initial evacuation is limited to those in Wuhan. Evacuees are expected to include employees of Honda Motor Co., Tokyo Electron, Aeon Co. and other Japanese companies operating in Wuhan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his Cabinet will designate the new coronavirus as an infectious disease subject to forced hospitalization and isolation. Such preventative measures appear to be preparation for the evacuation.
— UNITED STATES: The U.S. Consulate in Wuhan plans a charter flight Tuesday to evacuate its personnel and some other Americans. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the limited capacity on the flight to San Francisco meant priority will be given to to individuals at greater risk from coronavirus.”
— FRANCE: Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said French citizens who want to leave Wuhan will be taken on a direct flight to France in the middle of the week, and then held in quarantine for 14 days. French automaker PSA, which produces Peugeot and Citroen cars, said it was evacuating its expatriate employees and their families from Wuhan and quarantining them in another city. It didn’t elaborate.
— SRI LANKA: The embassy in Beijing has applied for a Sri Lankan Airlines plan to be allowed to land at the Wuhan airport to airlift home 32 Sri Lankan students and their family members. The Foreign Ministry also said it was working to bring back all other Sri Lankan students throughout China. About 860 Sri Lankan students are in China.
      
— AUSTRALIA: Foreign Minister Marise Payne said her government is “exploring all opportunities” to help with evacuation of a number of Australians reportedly in Wuhan. She didn’t elaborate. Australia doesn’t have a consular presence in Wuhan.
— GERMANY: Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that his country is considering evacuating its citizens from Wuhan, with a government crisis response committee meeting soon with medical experts to evaluate the situation. He said the number of German citizens in Wuhan is in the double digits. The Foreign Ministry currently advises Germans to refrain from or postpone “non-essential travel” to China.
— THAILAND: Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said his country’s Defense Ministry was ready to evacuate its citizens from affected areas in China, but hadn’t yet received permission from the Chinese government. The Thai Foreign Ministry, which is handling the issue, announced that there are 64 Thais in Wuhan, and 18 others elsewhere in Hubei province.  
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An expert in China warns that the new strain of virus originating from the Chinese city of Wuhan could be gaining strength and increasing its ability to transfer from one person to another. The coronavirus that is causing respiratory problems similar to pneumonia has sickened close to 3,000 people worldwide and killed at least 56 in China, prompting governments to come up with measures to protect their citizens. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the city of Wuhan on Monday to meet with health officials and examine the response to the outbreak of a coronavirus that has killed 80 people.Wuhan is the center of the outbreak and people there and in several other cities face strict restrictions on movement as the government tries to prevent the virus from spreading.Officials took an extra step Sunday to extend the Lunar New Year holiday three extra days to cut down on group gatherings.The latest figures reported by Chinese health officials include more than 2,700 cases of people being sickened by the virus.Cases have also been reported in Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Nepal, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.  The World Health Organization says most of those are people who had a travel history in Wuhan, with several others having contact with someone who traveled there.There have been no reported deaths linked to the virus outside of China.The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention respiratory disease office, Nancy Messonnier, said Sunday there were five confirmed cases in the United States, and that all five people had direct contact with others in Wuhan.The patients are isolated in hospitals as doctors and health officials try to find out more about the virus. The CDC says it is investigating about 100 suspected cases in 26 states.Chinese National Health Commission Minister Ma Xiaowei said Sunday little is known about the virus. But doctors do know it has an incubation period that can range from one to 14 days. Ma said the virus is infectious during the incubation period, when no signs or symptoms of the disease are present..President Xi Jinping said China is facing a “grave situation” and experts and other resources would be concentrated at specific hospitals to treat severe cases of the illness.The virus is believed to have emerged late last year in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, at a seafood market illegally selling wildlife. Chinese authorities have imposed a temporary ban on the selling of wildlife.  The virus hit China just as it was beginning the celebrations of the Lunar New Year, resulting in the canceling or the scaling back of festivities for tens of millions of Chinese. Tourist destinations are closed and school closings have been extended, in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.  Public transportation has been severely restricted. Many businesses have closed or asked employees to work from home.The WHO recommends several steps to help protect people against acute respiratory infections. They include avoiding close contact with those already infected, frequent hand-washing and avoiding unprotected contact with farm animals and wild animals.
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Private American citizens living and working in Wuhan are being warned there will not be room for many of them on an evacuation flight being prepared for U.S. consular staff in the epicenter of the Coronavirus epidemic.”The Department of State is making arrangements to relocate its personnel stationed at the U.S. Consulate General in Wuhan to the United States,” the U.S. Embassy in Beijing wrote on Sunday, adding that the flight will travel directly from Wuhan to San Francisco.”This capacity is extremely limited and if there is insufficient ability to transport everyone who expresses interest, priority will be given to individuals at greater risk from coronavirus,” a statement said.An American citizen teaching at a university in Wuhan, who asked that her name not be used for fear of Chinese retribution, told VOA that neither the consulate nor the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has yet contacted most American citizens in the city.”Maybe they have reached out to a few privileged individuals, but on the whole, they are not reaching out to average American citizens. We have received almost no support and no help,” the woman told VOA’s Mandarin Service.An announcement on the U.S. Embassy’s website directs citizens to apply for a seat on the plane by contacting American Citizen Services with their passport information.”There are thousands of us Americans in Wuhan,” the American citizen said. “A 747 seats like 250 people, they’re not going to take everyone out. Even if every single person wanted to leave, they would not take all of us,” she said, referring to the Boeing 747 jet that will likely be chartered for the flight.The announcement comes amid travel restrictions around the wider region, but especially in the city of Wuhan. The streets have been largely quiet amid ambiguous regulations on which vehicles can and cannot be on the road, even in urban areas.Some Wuhan residents have reported that early in the outbreak, individuals were arrested and accused of spreading “rumors” about the disease on social media. The American teacher said that in addition to the restrictions on her travel, the disinformation and fear of authority in Wuhan have added to the stress produced by the outbreak.”This is the craziest experience I’ve ever lived through in my entire life. I wish it weren’t happening. It’s it’s a nightmare,” she said.The disease, which has killed 56 people and sickened almost 2,000 around the world, has spread to about 15 countries, including France, Canada and the United States, where a third confirmed case was reported in southern California late Saturday.The World Health Organization said Thursday the potentially deadly virus has not yet developed into a worldwide health emergency.
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The U.N. refugee agency welcomes a ruling by the U.N. Human Rights Committee this past week that people fleeing climate-related and natural disasters have a valid claim for international protection.The case in question concerns Ioane Teitiota, a man from the Pacific island of Kiribati, whose claim for protection as a climate refugee was denied by New Zealand.  The U.N. Human Rights Committee, which reviewed this case, agrees with that decision on the grounds that he was not at imminent risk.  Nevertheless, the committee says people should not be returned to their place of origin if it is shown that climate change is a threat to their right to life. The U.N. refugee agency hails this a landmark decision.  UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic says the decision has potentially far-reaching implications for the international protection of displaced people affected by climate change and natural disasters.”It underscores the importance of countries taking action to prevent or mitigate against harms associated with climate change, which in future could otherwise force people to leave, triggering then international obligations.  And, secondly, that this ruling recognizes that the international refugee law is applicable in the context of climate change and disaster displacement,” he said. FILE – Flames from a controlled fire burn up tree trunks as firefighters work at building a containment line at a wildfire near Bodalla, Australia, Jan. 12, 2020.UNHCR Special Advisor on Climate Action Andrew Harper says the fires in Australia, melting glaciers, flooding, drought and other devastating climate-related disasters should be a wake-up call to action.”I think the ruling can be, or the decision can be summarized by saying if we do not do more to prevent, then we will inevitably have an obligation to protect,” he said. “If we do not succeed in providing the resilience, the capacity for communities to survive this climatic catastrophe, then we will have to be doing much more on the protection front.”  Harper says it is impossible to anticipate how many people could be displaced by climate change.   He notes those most vulnerable are people in small island developing states, Asia and Africa — most of whom are too poor to leave.The UNHCR is calling for urgent action to help vulnerable communities mitigate and adapt to the changing climate so individuals do not feel forced to leave their homes.  
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Algae often gets a bad rap — for creating dead zones in the ocean and toxic pond scum when the “wrong” algae blooms. But algae has a talent people need: as a crop it can provide carbon-neutral fuels, foods and products, even in salty water, even in the desert. To make algae products a reality, scientists at “NREL,” the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, are unlocking algae’s secrets. Shelley Schlender in Boulder, Colorado, has more.
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Spacewalking astronauts plugged a leak in a cosmic ray detector outside the International Space Station on Saturday, bringing it another step closer to new life. It was the fourth spacewalk since November for NASA’s Andrew Morgan and Italy’s Luca Parmitano to fix the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. They installed new coolant pumps last month to revive the instrument’s crippled cooling system and needed to check for any leaks in the plumbing. Parmitano quickly discovered a leak in one of the eight coolant lines — the first one he tested — and tightened the fitting. Our day just got a little more challenging,'' Mission Control observed. The line still leaked after a mandatory one-hour wait, and Parmitano tightened it again. Finally, success — the leak was gone.Let us all take a breath,” Mission Control urged. By then, the astronauts were already halfway into their planned six-hour spacewalk. Mission Control acknowledged the leak added some unwanted drama'' to the spacewalk.Everybody’s hearts stopped,” Mission Control told the astronauts. Parmitano wondered aloud what the flight surgeon in Houston saw when the leak erupted — he said his heart rate either flat-lined or spiked, one of the two.'' Back to work soonBarring further trouble, the $2 billion spectrometer — launched to the space station in 2011 — could resume its hunt for elusive antimatter and dark matter next week, according to NASA. NASA has described the spectrometer spacewalks as the most complicated since the Hubble Space Telescope repair missions a few decades ago. Unlike Hubble, this spectrometer was never intended for astronaut handling in orbit, and it took NASA years to devise a repair plan. Despite their complexity, the first three spacewalks went well. Morgan and Parmitano had to cut into stainless steel pipes to bypass the spectrometer's old, degraded coolant pumps, and then splice the tubes into the four new pumps — no easy job when working in bulky gloves. The system uses carbon dioxide as the coolant. Besides checking for leaks Saturday, the astronauts had to cover the spectrometer with thermal insulation. We are very excited for you to be finishing off all of the amazing work that you’ve already put into this AMS repair,” astronaut Jessica Meir radioed from inside as the spacewalk got underway, “and I think everyone’s excited to the prospects of what AMS has to offer once you guys finish off the work today.” The 7½-ton (6,800-kilogram) spectrometer was launched to the space station on NASA’s next-to-last shuttle flight. Until it was shut down late last year for the repair work, it had studied more than 148 billion charged cosmic rays. The project is led by Samuel Ting, a Nobel laureate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Good for as much as 10 yearsThe repairs should allow the spectrometer to continue working for the rest of the life of the space station, or another five to 10 years. It was designed to operate for three years and so already has surpassed its expected lifetime. NASA’s two other astronauts on board, Meir and Christina Koch, performed two spacewalks over the past 1½ weeks to upgrade the space station’s solar power system. Altogether, this station crew has gone out on nine spacewalks. 
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Southeast Asia’s proximity to China and dependence on that nation for a major share of its economy is raising concerns that the coronavirus outbreak  that started there will not only have health impacts but harm the region’s economies.The outbreak, which has so far caused 41 deaths in China, and caused the country to quarantine 16 cities, is causing comparisons to the 2003 spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which decreased the value of the global economy by $40 billion.“Now that the Wuhan coronavirus has been found to be able to be transmitted from human to human, the economic consequences could be extremely concerning for the Asia-Pacific region,” Rajiv Biswas, IHS Markit Asia Pacific chief economist, said.“Sectors of the economy that are particularly vulnerable to a SARS-like virus epidemic that can be spread by human-to-human transmission are retail stores, restaurants, conferences, sporting events, tourism and commercial aviation,” he said.Observers agree that tourism could be one of the hardest-hit industries, in part because of the millions of Chinese who usually travel now, during the Lunar New Year, and in part because China has grown so much in the last two decades that many neighboring nations depend on it for tourism.That is only one of the economic differences between China today and the China of the SARS virus in 2003.China has since then become a member of the World Trade Organization and the second-biggest economy in the world. Its supply chain has become more integrated with the rest of the world than it has ever been, and it has become the biggest trading partner for many countries in the region.The 2003 virus decreased China’s economic growth rate, but its effect was the same for Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam, Biswas said.This time around Chinese tourism matters even more to Southeast Asia.After Hong Kong, nations for which Chinese visitors’ spending accounts for the biggest share of gross domestic product are, from most to least, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia, according to statistics released by Capital Economics, a London-based research company, Friday. In many of these nations, businesses catering to tourists display signs in Chinese, accept China’s yuan currency, and use that country’s WeChat for mobile payments.Major tourism events in the region add to the threat that the virus and its economic impact will spread, such as the Tokyo Summer Olympics, Biswas said. Vietnam will also host the Vietnam Grand Prix Formula One race this year, while Malaysia will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.Singapore is an island nation that depends heavily on foreign trade, including to facilitate trade and investment in China. Selena Ling, head of treasury research and strategy at Singapore’s OCBC Bank, said Friday she was expecting Singapore’s economy to stage a modest recovery from 2019, but that may change.She said “the recent coronavirus outbreak originating from China to other countries including Singapore may impart some uncertainty to near-term business and consumer sentiments.”That could mean slower growth in the first quarter of 2020, she said.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping called a politburo meeting Saturday to discuss ways to contain the deadly coronavirus, declaring the country is facing a “grave situation,” state television reported. The meeting took place as the new virus stopped all Lunar New Year celebrations for tens of millions of Chinese.According to the report, Xi told politburo members the coronavirus is “accelerating its spread” and that experts and other resources would be concentrated at specific hospitals to treat severe cases of the illness.This comes as the U.S. government is planning to evacuate American diplomats, their families, and other U.S. citizens from Wuhan on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal is reporting Saturday.The report, which cites a person familiar with the plans, said the U.S. consulate there is contacting the estimated 1,000 Americans it is aware of in the city of 11 million people. Americans who are evacuated will be responsible for the cost of the evacuation via a plane that seats about 230 people, the person said. Chinese state TV also says the government will treat all cases expeditiously, regardless of cost, and will guarantee that supplies are shipped to the Hubei province and its capital of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.Meanwhile, Russia is talking with the China about the possibility of evacuating Russian citizens from the Chinese city Wuhan and also Hubei province, according to the RIA news agency, which cited the Russian embassy.RIA is quoting the Russian embassy’s press person in China saying there are no Russians inffected with the coronavirus.China’s National Health Commission says the death toll from the new virus has jumped to 41, with more than 1,200 infections in 29 provinces across the country.Fifteen medical workers are among those who have been infected. One doctor has died.Hundreds of medical personnel have been deployed to Wuhan, where the virus emerged late last year.Wuhan, like 16 other Chinese cities, has been shuttered, in an effort to contain the coronavirus.   The local government of the virus-hit city said Saturday, “Motor vehicles shall be prohibited from driving in the central urban areas.”Beijing’s Forbidden City and Shanghai Disneyland have been closed indefinitely. Popular tourist destination Sanya city in Hainan province has closed all tourist sites to prevent the spread of the virus.Hong Kong, which has confirmed five cases of the virus in the territory, has declared a state of emergency, canceling the official Lunar New Year celebration and closing schools.The virus is making is slowly making its way around the world.Five cases have been reported in Thailand.Australia has reported four cases.France, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan have each reported three cases.Both the United States and Vietnam have confirmed two cases.Nepal has reported one case. 
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A coronavirus has stopped cold Lunar New Year celebrations for tens of millions of Chinese.China’s National Health Commission says the death toll from the new virus has jumped to 41, with more than 1200 infections in 29 provinces across the country.Fifteen medical workers are among those who have been infected.  One doctor has died.Hundreds of medical personnel have been deployed to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, where the virus emerged late last year.Wuhan, like 16 other Chinese cities, has been shuttered, in an effort to contain the coronavirus.   The local government of the virus-hit city said Saturday, “Motor vehicles shall be prohibited from driving in the central urban areas.”Beijing’s Forbidden City and Shanghai Disneyland have been closed indefinitely. Popular tourist destination Sanya city in Hainan province has closed all tourist sites to prevent the spread of the virus.Hong Kong has declared a state of emergency, canceling the official Lunar New Year celebration and closing schools.The virus is making is slowly making its way around the world.Five cases have been reported in Thailand.Australia has reported four cases.France, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan have each reported three cases.Both the United States and Vietnam confirmed two cases.Nepal reported one case.
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The virus that has caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of illnesses worldwide emerged from a market in Wuhan, China, that sold live food animals, including some animals caught in the wild, according to Chinese authorities.One study suggested FILE – A Chinese man looks over cages of dogs and rabbits at a live-animal market in Guangzhou, Southern China, Jan 6, 2004.Bird flu spread in these markets in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The H5N1 strain of influenza has killed 455 people since 2003.Without proper sanitation and animal handling, health officials said, these markets can be spawning grounds for diseases.Live animal markets are found across the developing world, especially in Asia and Africa.Most animals sold there are healthy. But in the crowded conditions at these markets, one sick animal can infect many more, experts said.Wild cardsWild animals introduce a dangerous wild card.For example, civet cats carried the virus that caused SARS. But scientists think the virus originated in bats.“In the normal world, these species would never meet,” said veterinarian Tony Goldberg, associate director for research at the University of Wisconsin Global Health Institute.“But in these live animal markets, they brought those two species together,” he said. “And when you do that in these tight, crowded, stressful conditions, you create every opportunity for these viruses to jump host species.”The virus could spread when a vendor butchers an animal. Or a sick animal could spread it through its saliva, urine, feces or other secretions.Humans and domesticated animals have been exposed to each other’s diseases for millennia. We’ve developed some defenses. That’s not the case with a new virus coming from a wild animal, Goldberg said.FILE – A Chinese man carries sacks containing geese at a live-animal market in Guangzhou, Southern China, Jan. 6, 2004.The virus lotteryGiven how common these markets are around the world, it’s almost surprising that new outbreaks don’t happen more often, veterinarian William Karesh, executive vice president for health and policy at EcoHealth Alliance, said.“I’ve gone to a market in Southeast Asia and they’re selling maybe 5,000 or 6,000 bats every week,” he said. “And that’s just one market. As you drive around, there’s 20 or 30 of those markets within a few hours’ drive. So now we’re talking about tens of thousands of bats for sale, and tens of thousands of rats (and other species). And that’s going on throughout much of the world.“So we’re talking, really, about millions of animals for sale on a daily basis and tens of millions of people shopping there,” Karesh said.For a virus looking for a different species to infect, he said, it’s like playing the lottery.“Your chances of winning are pretty high when you’ve got exposure to 10 or 15 or 20 million people every day,” Karesh said.TraditionsPeople often don’t shop at these markets by choice, he said. When refrigeration is not available, the best way to get fresh meat is to buy it when it’s still alive. And customers can see if the animal is healthy before they buy it.Also, many wild-caught foods are “deeply cherished in many cultures around the world,” not just in Africa and Asia, Goldberg said, even if they may carry diseases.In the United States, rabbits carry tularemia, a bacterial disease that can be fatal. It’s on the list of potential bioterror weapons.“You’ll see human cases pop up every now and then when rabbit hunters cut themselves when butchering a rabbit,” Goldberg said, adding he knows a rabbit hunter who got tularemia twice.FILE – Packs of Canadian pork are displayed for sale at a supermarket in Beijing, June 18, 2019.Market shiftThe Chinese government closed live animal markets after SARS. But the markets have slowly reopened in the years since.The government could close them again. But what may ultimately solve the problem is not a government mandate but a cultural shift.Around the world, Karesh said, more young people are shopping at supermarkets.“The grocery store is selling chilled refrigerated chicken, and it’s cheaper,” he said. “And people are busy. They’re going to work. They don’t really have time to go to that live animal market anymore.”Plus, he added, attitudes are changing. Older people may see wild animals as a delicacy. The younger generation? Not so much.“I don’t think they’re so interested in going to the live animal markets anymore to watch a bat be slaughtered or have a chicken have its throat cut,” he said.“Twenty years ago, there weren’t many people in China who had pet dogs,” he said. Now, “there’s a new generation of people that when they see a dog, they’re not thinking about food. They’re thinking about, ‘Oh, wow, what a wonderful opportunity to have a pet.’”
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China is reporting another 15 deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the toll from the disease to 41, and an additional 180 people sickened in central Hubei province.The new figures, announced by officials in Hubei province, brought the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus to more than 1,000.The development came as France announced three cases of the virus, marking the first confirmed diagnoses in Europe.French health officials said Friday that two of the cases involved patients who had recently traveled from China, while the third person was a relative of one of the initial patients.Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner, Chicago Department of Public Health, speaks at a news conference, Jan. 24, 2020, in Chicago. A Chicago woman has become the second U.S. patient diagnosed with the dangerous new virus from China.Second US caseAlso Friday, U.S. health officials reported a second patient infected with the virus, a woman from Chicago, Illinois, who returned January 13 from Wuhan, where the epidemic is believed to have started.The woman, who is in her 60s, reportedly is doing well but is hospitalized “primarily for infection control,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago’s public health commissioner.People who had close contact with the woman were being monitored.The U.S. announced its first case Tuesday in the northwestern state of Washington. Health officials there said a man who returned to Seattle from Wuhan last week was hospitalized in good condition, but had pneumonia.Medical authorities say it’s likely additional cases will be identified in the near term because the virus apparently has a two-week incubation period.Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, talks to reporters before the start of a closed all-senators briefing on the coronavirus on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 24, 2020.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said more than 2,000 travelers returning to U.S. soil had been screened at U.S. airports, and 63 patients in 22 states were being tested. Of those being tested, 11 thus far have been found to be free of the virus.The Pentagon said Friday that it had no indication “of outbreaks that would affect our personnel.” However, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said U.S. base commanders were monitoring the situation “particularly in the Indo-Pacific region” and “have the authority to take additional action if they need to.”A police officer checks the temperature of a driver at a highway in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province, Jan. 24, 2020.Cities locked down, Disney closesThe Chinese government isolated more cities Friday, an unprecedented move to contain the coronavirus, which has spread to other countries.At least 10 cities, and a total of at least 33 million people, have been put on lockdown — Wuhan, Huanggang, Ezhou, Chibi, Qianjiang, Zhijiang, Jingmen, Xiantao, Xiaogan and Huangshi, all in Hubei province — on the eve of the Lunar New Year, when millions of Chinese traditionally travel.Shanghai Disney Resort announced on its website that it is temporarily closing Shanghai Disneyland, a major tourist attraction during Lunar New Year, “in response to the prevention and control of the disease outbreak and in order to ensure the health and safety” of guests and cast.The municipal authorities of Wuhan said Friday that the city was building a new 1,000-bed hospital, expected to be completed by February 3.On Thursday, authorities banned planes and trains from leaving Wuhan. Toll roads were closed, and ferry, subway and bus services were also suspended.Wuhan authorities have demanded that all residents wear masks in public and urged government and private sector employees to wear them in the workplace, according to the Xinhua news agency, which cited a government official.Similar measures were taken hours later in the nearby cities of Huanggang and Ezhou.The government also canceled holiday events in Beijing that usually attract large crowds.Fifteen medical workers are among those who have been infected by the virus, which has spread from Wuhan to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province. Most of the cases have been in China, but cases have also been reported in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Nepal, France and the United States.US working on vaccineScientists at the U.S. Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, are working on developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.“It will take at least three months to complete the first phase of development,” said Dr. Lily Dai, a researcher at the institute. She spoke with VOA’s Mandarin service as an individual scientist, not as an NIH representative.Dai said that after the first phase of development, researchers will test the vaccine on people for another three months to determine if it is safe.Forest Cong of VOA’s Mandarin service contributed to this report.
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Afghanistan and Pakistan witnessed a spike in reported polio cases last year, further highlighting what local officials call an imminent threat to the border region
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The World Health Organization says the number of reported cases and deaths from the new coronavirus is probably an underestimation. The latest reports put the number of confirmed cases at 830, including 26 deaths.Most of the infections and all of the deaths have occurred in China. A small number of coronavirus cases have been reported in seven other countries, including the United States. All have been mild, and all of those patients have recovered.World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says it is too early to draw conclusions about the severity of the coronavirus.”Because at the beginning of any outbreak, you would focus more on the severe cases and you will have more of those and then maybe we are missing some mild cases because people will just be a little bit sick and will not be ever tested and they will recover,” Jasarevic said. “We may see more mild cases as surveillance intensifies. So, the issue is not really so much on numbers that we know that will go up.”Michael Ryan, the executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, says there is no particular treatment for this new pneumonia-like coronavirus.”There have been a number of compounds that have been used in the fight against coronavirus, but it is very important to recognize that there is no recognized effective therapeutic against coronaviruses,” he said. “However, there are potential clinical trials that can be done with agents and that is what we are focused on right now — identifying other therapeutic agents and opportunities to test new drugs.”On Thursday, a WHO expert committee decided not to declare the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the virus was an emergency in China, but had not yet become a global health emergency.He did, however, add the WHO was ready to reconvene another emergency meeting to review the decision if the evolution of the epidemic warranted a re-examination.  
 
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More airports are beginning to screen passengers arriving from China amid growing concerns Friday over the outbreak of a new virus there that has already killed more than two dozen people and sickened hundreds.
    
The energy-rich Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, home to long-haul carrier Qatar Airways, said it had installed thermal scanners at its main hub, Hamad International Airport.
    
Kuwait announced similar measures late the night before at Kuwait International Airport, joining the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which on Thursday announced screenings for all passengers arriving on direct flights from China, including at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest.
    
Kuwait’s state-run news agency said isolation rooms had also been opened at Kuwait International Airport for passengers suspected to have the virus.
    
Elsewhere in the region, Bahrain said it was taking unspecified steps over the virus.
    
China has shut down Wuhan and other cities in the Hubei province, which is the center of the outbreak of the newly identified coronavirus.
    
A scattered number of cases have been confirmed in other countries, but their are fears that during the travel and festivities accompanying Lunar New Year starting this weekend the virus could spread more widely.
    
The U.S. State Department on Thursday pulled all non-emergency American personnel and their family out of the province, and issued a travel warning urging people not to visit Hubei.
    
In Pakistan the Civil Aviation Authority said Friday all passengers coming from neighboring China will be screened for the virus, and any suspected of being infected will be kept in isolation at designated hospitals.
    
Officials say the number of Chinese nationals travelling between Pakistan and China have seen a considerable increase in recent years because of Beijing’s billions of dollars investment in infrastructure development projects.
    
As many as 41 flights from China land at Pakistani airports every week.
    
In Afghanistan, which shares a border with both Pakistan and China, Health Ministry spokesman Nezamuddin Jalil said authorities are concerned about the virus but so far had no reports of any suspected cases and had not instituted any additional airport screening measures.
    
Africa’s busiest hub, Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has also started screening passengers from China, according to health officials.
    
In addition, two hospitals in the capital are being prepared for any emergency cases. Ethiopia is home to Africa’s largest airline, Ethiopian Airlines, which transports hundreds of passengers every day between China and the East African nation.
    
In Cairo, airport authorities launched a program to train airport staff and airline crews on handling passengers arriving from China who might be affected by the new virus. Lectures have been held and pamphlets with details about the symptoms are being handed out, added airport officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the measures. 
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