Health

PARIS, Jan 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — French citizens will be evacuated from the Wuhan area in China that is the centre of a coronavirus outbreak, French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn said.

“French citizens will be repatriated by airplane directly to France, with the agreement of the Chinese authorities. This will take place midweek,” Buzyn told reporters.

BEIJING, Jan 27 (NNN-ASIAONE) – China said today (Monday), the death toll from the deadly viral outbreak spiked to 80, as the hard-hit epicentre province of Hubei suffered 24 new fatalities, while total confirmed cases nationwide rose sharply to 2,744.

While there were no new deaths confirmed outside of Hubei, the national tally of verified infections rose by 769, around half of them in Hubei, the National Health Commission said. It said, 461 of those infected were in serious condition.

SHANGHAI, Jan 26 (NNN-TOL) – More than 2,000 people globally have been infected with coronavirus, the vast majority of them in China, where 56 people have died from the disease, according to figures released today.

President Xi Jinping said, during a politburo meeting on Saturday, that, China was facing a “grave situation,” as health authorities around the world scrambled to prevent a pandemic.

New York, Jan 25 (PTI) Exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) during early childhood is associated with structural changes in the brain at the age of 12, according to a study which warns that the pollutants may affect physical and mental development in kids.

According to the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, children with higher levels of TRAP exposure at birth had reductions at age 12 in the brain's gray matter volume, and outer layer thickness compared to children with lower levels of exposure.

WUHAN/BEIJING, Jan 25 (NNN-XINHUA) – China is mobilising medical staff to aid Wuhan, the centre of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, as the country reported 830 confirmed cases of pneumonia, caused by the virus and 25 deaths by the end of Thursday.

By Thursday midnight, Hubei Province in central China reported 549 cumulative confirmed cases of the new coronavirus pneumonia, with 495 in Wuhan, the provincial capital. Nationwide, 29 provincial-level regions have reported confirmed cases.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 (NNN-XINHUA) – Malaysian authorities said today (Saturday) that, the first three cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed in the southern Johor state, bordering Singapore.

The infected individuals are Chinese nationals and close relatives of a 66-year-old man who had tested positive for the disease in Singapore, namely his wife and two grandchildren, whose samples were tested positive, Malaysian Health Minister, Dzulkefly Ahmad, said.

BEIJING, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Chinese officials expanded travel restrictions on Thursday to include two more cities, one of which was also ordered to lock down to mitigate the spread of a deadly coronavirus.

China has closed off access to the major port city of Wuhan, where the outbreak originated, but officials added Huanggang and Ezhou to the restricted list. Huanggang, like Wuhan previously, was also placed on lockdown.

Huanggang, 30 miles east of Wuhan, is home to 7 million people and Ezhou 1 million.

SINGAPORE, Jan 24 (NNN-CNA) — Singapore on Thursday announced a confirmed case of the Wuhan virus, a new coronavirus that has sickened hundreds of people and killed at least 25. 

In a media briefing, the Ministry of Health said the patient is a 66-year-old Chinese man. The Wuhan resident, who arrived in Singapore with his family on Jan 20, flew from Guangzhou via China Southern flight CZ351. 

GENEVA, Jan 23 (NNN-Xinhua) — The World Health Organization (WHO) extended to Thursday its emergency talks on whether the novel coronavirus outbreak in China constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

“There was an excellent discussion during the meeting today, but it was also clear that to proceed, we need more information,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference after a closed-door meeting of an Emergency Committee.

WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States announced its first case of a new virus that has claimed at least 17 lives in China and sickened hundreds, joining countries around the world in ramping up measures to block its spread.

The man, a US resident in his 30s who lives near Seattle in Washington state, is in good condition, according to federal and state officials, and approached authorities himself after reading about the SARS-like virus in news reports.