Japan and the United States evacuated on Wednesday several hundred of their nationals stranded in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic of viral pneumonia which already made the country more sick than SARS nearly twenty years ago.
The toll of the epidemic rises to 132 dead. The number of victims has jumped to 132 and the number of confirmed cases exceeds 5,974 across China, according to an assessment by authorities on Wednesday.
This figure now exceeds the number of infections recorded during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in 2002-2003, a previous coronavirus which had contaminated 5,327 people in the country. SARS killed 774 people worldwide, including 349 in mainland China.
Viruses in China: Lessons from SARS
While most of the contamination by the new virus has taken place in China, around fifteen countries are also affected. Alarmingly, Japan and Germany reported on Tuesday human-to-human transmissions on their soil.
First evacuations launched by the United States and Japan. Japan and the United States are this Wednesday the first countries to initiate the repatriation of part of their nationals, trapped in the metropolis of Wuhan (center), where the new coronavirus appeared in December.
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This city and almost all of Hubei province have been cut off from the world since January 23 by the authorities in the hope of stemming the epidemic. This cordon cordon concerns 56 million inhabitants and a few thousand foreigners.
Departing from Wuhan, a Japanese plane carrying some 200 Japanese nationals landed in the early morning in Tokyo. "I am really relieved," said one of the returnees, Takeo Aoyama, an employee of the steel company Nippon Steel, when he left.
"We could no longer move freely and were only partially informed [...] The number of sick people started to soar quickly at a certain point, it was frightening," he said.
The streets of Wuhan deserted by 11 million inhabitants
The United States also announced that a plane sent to evacuate the personnel of their consulate of Wuhan, as well as other American nationals, had taken off Wednesday with approximately 200 people on board.
France is preparing a first repatriation on Thursday. Paris, for its part, said that a plane should land Thursday in Wuhan in order to bring back the first French returnees "probably Friday". These people will be subject to a quarantine of 14 days upon their return, according to the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn.
Coronavirus: French people to be repatriated from China
According to the European Commission, a second French plane will take off "later in the week". In total, the two planes will make it possible to repatriate at least 350 Europeans, including 250 French.
A fourth confirmed case in France. French authorities have reported a fourth patient with the new coronavirus, an elderly Chinese tourist from Hubei, who was in "severe clinical condition" and "requires continuous care" in a Paris hospital.
Coronavirus in France: symptoms and prevention
Added to the three cases already confirmed, this makes a total of four cases proven in France. This new case is not linked to the first three, hospitalized in Bordeaux for one, and in Paris for the other two, in a state that does not generate concern.
British Airways announces the suspension of all its flights to China. British Airways announced on Wednesday that all flights to mainland China will be suspended immediately following orders from the United Kingdom to avoid traveling to the country due to the new coronavirus.
"We have suspended all flights to and from mainland China with immediate effect following the recommendation of the Foreign Ministry," the company said in a statement sent to AFP.
