The death toll in China from a deadly new coronavirus rose to 132 with new cases reaching nearly 6,000, state media reported on Wednesday as Japan and the United States began evacuating their citizens from Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak.
More than 56 million people in almost 20 Chinese cities, including Wuhan, have been prevented from travelling in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus during the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, traditionally China's busiest travel season.
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The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, met China's President Xi Jingping on Tuesday.
The agency has acknowledged the respiratory illness is an emergency in China but said last week it was too early to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. It has described the global risk from the virus as high.
Here are the latest updates:
Wednesday, January 29
Malaysia says 3 new cases of virus infection, total at 7
Malaysia's health ministry said on Wednesday three more people had been infected with the new coronavirus, taking the total number of cases in the country to seven, all Chinese citizens.
The new patients are a 4-year-old girl, a 52-year-old man and the mother of two children who were confirmed infected earlier, the ministry said in a statement.
Authorities said the mother had initially tested negative and had stayed in Malaysia to take care of her children - grandsons of a 66-year-old man who tested positive in Singapore for the coronavirus last week.
Malaysia this week imposed a temporary ban on Chinese nationals arriving from Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province.
US increases virus screening to 20 airports: CDC
The US Centers for Disease Control said it "decided to expand to screening travelers from the five airports originally to 20 airports in the United States"' based on "evolving information from China" on the coronavirus.
“At this point Americans should not worry for their own safety,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters.
Still, “this is a very fast-moving, constantly changing situation,” Azar added.
Australia to help some citizens leave China, quarantine them on Christmas Island
Australia will help some citizens leave Hubei, and quarantine them on Christmas Island, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday following a briefing by the Chinese government.
"We have taken a decision this morning to prepare a plan for an operation to provide some assisted departures for isolated and vulnerable Australians in Wuhan and the Hubei province," Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
Christmas Island is an Australian territory south of the Indonesian island of Java.
Japan plane evacuating citizens arrives Tokyo from virus-hit Wuhan
A chartered plane carrying 206 Japanese nationals evacuated from Wuhan arrived at Tokyo's Haneda airport on Wednesday morning.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday that 650 Japanese citizens were hoping to come home, and the government was making arrangements for additional flights.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed that the government will explore all possible measures to bring back any citizens who want to return to Japan.
Death toll continues to rise and more cases confirmed
China's National Health Commission said on Wednesday the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak had risen to 132 by the end of Tuesday, with a further 1,459 new cases confirmed.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China stood at 5,974 as of the end of Tuesday, the authority said in a statement. The number of suspected cases was 9,239, it said.
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