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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 5 February 2020

U.K., France urge citizens out of China; Belgium sees 1st case

LONDON (AP) — Britain on more cases of the virus: one
Tuesday urged all of its citi- an employee of an auto
zens in China to leave the parts company that a Chi-
country because of the nese colleague visited two
outbreak of a respiratory ill- weeks ago and the other in
ness from a new virus, while a child of an infected com-
Belgium became the latest pany employee who previ-
nation to announce a con- ously had another child test
firmed case. positive.
An updated advisory issued In all, Europe had 28 con-
by the U.K. Foreign Office firmed cases of the corona-
said that while commercial virus as of Tuesday: Germa-
flights remained available ny has 12; France six; Russia,
from most of mainland Italy and the U.K have two
China, travel restrictions in- each and Finland, Sweden,
troduced by the Chinese Spain and Belgium have
government to contain the one each.
epidemic meant "it may The European Union's med-
become harder to access icines agency said it was
departure options over the taking action to "acceler-
coming weeks. ate the development and French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn, right, listens to German Health Minister Jens Spahn during a
"If you're in China and able availability" of medicines to joint press conference, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 in Paris.
to leave, you should do so," treat and prevent the virus. Associated Press
the advisory said. The Amsterdam-based
France also issued an ad- agency is responsible for regional Italian gover- transport aircraft assigned to be as efficient and quick
visory, warning against evaluating, supervising and nors from the anti-migrant to airlift Russians left Wuhan as possible," Putin said Tues-
any non-essential travel to monitoring medicines in the League party formally on Tuesday night with 80 day at a meeting with stu-
China and suggesting that 27-nation bloc. asked the health ministry evacuees. Deputy Prime dents and researchers.
French citizens who were It said in a statement that to require school-age chil- Minister Tatiana Golikova Dr. David Heymann, who
already there return home. while there are currently dren from China to under- said earlier in the day that led the World Health Or-
More than 20,400 people no medicines authorized to go 14 days of observation 132 Russians and 15 citizens ganization's response to
have been infected with detect, treat of prevent in- before being allowed back of other ex-Soviet nations the SARS outbreak, said it's
the virus in China and 425 fections with the new virus to class. in all would be flown out of too early to tell when the
have died. Two other peo- it is "ready to support medi- Italian Premier Giuseppe Wuhan and quarantined in virus outbreak will peak but
ple have died in the Philip- cine developers with all Conte, however, demand- southwestern Siberia. that it appears the disease
pines and Hong Kong and available regulatory tools ed an end to such discrimi- Russian President Vladimir is still on the increase. He
20 other nations have re- to advance and expedite natory reactions and the Putin urged Chinese au- said the exponential spike
ported cases. the development of effec- Italy's National Health In- thorities to work hard to halt in China's caseload in re-
Belgium, meanwhile, re- tive measures to fight and stitute insisted that its pre- the outbreak. cent days was partly at-
ported its first case of the prevent the spread of this cautionary measures for "I hope that our Chinese tributable to the fact that
coronavirus, found in one virus." school-age children were friends will overcome the Chinese officials expanded
of the nine citizens who Italy could lose up to 4.5 bil- sufficient. difficult situation with hon- their search to include mild-
were repatriated from Wu- lion euros ($4.97 billion) in The Russian Defense Ministry or. We all want results of the er cases, not only people
han over the weekend. The tourism revenue this year if said the first of five military fight against the new virus with pneumonia.q
Belgian Health Ministry said coronavirus fears keep visi-
the infected individual was tors away, leading polling
in good health and didn't agency Demoskopika said
show any symptoms of the in a study released Tues-
disease. The person was day. The amount repre-
taken to a special hospital sents around 5% of tourism-
for further care while the generated contribution to
others remained under ob- Italy's gross domestic prod-
servation. uct.
Germany confirmed two Fueling those fears, four