More than 6,000 tourists were under lockdown aboard a cruise ship at an Italian port on Thursday after two Chinese passengers were isolated over fears they could be carrying the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization said on Monday that it remained unclear if the deadly virus is contagious during its incubation period before symptoms appear. It did not immediately confirm assertions made by Chinese authorities that people who are infected can spread the disease before they show any symptoms of fever or respiratory difficulties.
A man who fell ill in Mexico on Monday following a December trip to Wuhan, China, is under observation as a potential case of the coronavirus, the respiratory virus that has killed at least 19 people worldwide.
China said it was halting flights and trains from Thursday out of Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the centre of a deadly SARS-like virus outbreak, as the UN extended emergency talks on the disease.
The number of deaths from a new SARS-like virus has climbed to nine as of the end of Tuesday with 440 confirmed cases, Chinese health officials said as authorities stepped up efforts to control the outbreak by discouraging public gatherings in Hubei province.
A SARS-like virus that has spread across China and reached three other Asian nations is contagious between humans, a government expert said, and the World Health Organization announced that a key emergency committee would meet this week to discuss the infections. The news came as Wuhan health authorities reported on Tuesday that a fourth person had died of the coronavirus.
A cluster of more than 50 pneumonia cases in the central Chinese city of Wuhan may be due to a newly emerging member of the family of viruses that caused the deadly SARS and MERS outbreaks, World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.