Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the spread of the epidemic of viral pneumonia (the new corona virus), which has killed 41 people, is accelerating and putting China in a dangerous situation, while the number of people infected with the virus, which appeared last December, has increased to about 1372 people in China, and infections were diagnosed in many other countries, and in an effort to contain the outbreak of the virus, China isolated 12 cities and 43 million people, after it stopped public transport from operating and suspended public gatherings.
Yesterday, teams of paramedics from the cities of Shanghai and Guangdong, and the People's Liberation Army, arrived in Wuhan, central China, where the outbreak of the new strain of the Coronavirus, to provide medical assistance to the injured. The Chinese authorities put 1,200 paramedics on call only in Wuhan, While the National Health Committee of China announced that the death toll of the country as a result of infection with the virus rose to 41 people, and that the number of cases reached about 1372 people in 30 provinces until yesterday, including 500 cases in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.
Among the victims who died from the virus, 39 were in Wuhan, while two others died in Hebei and Heilongjiang provinces, and most of the deaths were of people in the 1950s or older, according to Chinese media.
China has strengthened its measures to combat the new Corona virus, by deploying its military doctors in the epidemic area, and urgently building a second hospital to reduce the spread of the mysterious disease. Transport north and south of the country, to try to prevent the spread of the virus that has now reached four continents.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the United States is arranging for a casual flight today to return American citizens and diplomats from the Chinese city of Wuhan, while the Russian Information Agency quoted the Russian embassy in China as saying that Moscow is consulting with China about the possibility of evacuating Russian citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan and Hubei province.
The Australian authorities announced three new confirmed cases of the new strain of the Coronavirus, in Sydney, a few hours after the announcement of the first confirmed case of the virus in the country, which is for a man in his fifties in the city of Melbourne, and the four men finally visited a city Chinese Wuhan, the center of the virus outbreak.
It is noteworthy that the new virus belongs to the same strain of viruses that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that infected about 8,000 people worldwide during the years 2002-2003, about 800 of whom died, and cases of HIV infection were recorded in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the United States, and France recorded the first cases of the new virus in Europe, according to what it announced late yesterday.