SYDNEY/SEOUL, Feb 27 (Agencies): Governments ramped up measures on Thursday to battle a looming global pandemic of the coronavirus as the number of new infections outside China for the first time surpassed new cases in the country where the outbreak began.
Global stocks markets have dropped for six straight days, wiping out more than $3.6 trillion in value.
The coronavirus has infected more than 80,000 people and killed nearly 2,800, the majority in China.
Much remains unknown about the virus but it is clear the ramifications of the world's second-biggest economy in lockdown for a month or more are vast.
There have been 3,246 cases outside China, including 51 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
Brazil confirmed Latin America's first infection on Wednesday.
China reported 433 new cases on Thursday, against 406 a day earlier.
South Korea reported another 334 cases, pushing its total to 1,595, the most in any country other than China.
Saudi Arabia on Thursday suspended visas for visits to Islam's holiest sites for the "umrah" pilgrimage, an unprecedented move triggered by coronavirus fears that raises questions over the annual hajj.
The kingdom, which hosts millions of pilgrims every year in the cities of Makkah and Medina, also suspended visas for tourists from countries with reported infections as fears of a pandemic deepen.
Saudi Arabia, which so far has reported no cases of the virus but has expressed alarm over its spread in neighbouring countries, said the suspensions were temporary.
In Iran 22 people have died so far from the new coronavirus, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported in a chart it published on Thursday.
Many of the cases appearing in the Middle East have been linked to Iran, which has 22 deaths, the most outside China.
The number of people diagnosed with the disease is 141, the chart showed. It did not specify whether those who have died were included in the tally of those infected.
Pakistan has detected its first two cases of novel coronavirus, a public health advisor to Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted Wednesday, days after Islamabad closed its land border with Iran, where 22 people have died from the virus.
Chinese authorities said the number of new deaths stood at 29 on Thursday, the lowest daily tally since Jan. 28. The virus has now killed 2,744 people in China, most in the central province of Hubei. Italy reported another 100 cases nationwide, taking the total in Europe's biggest hot spot to more than 400, while its death toll rose to 12.
Australia initiated emergency measures and Taiwan raised its epidemic response level to its highest, a day after US President Donald Trump put his vice president, Mike Pence, in charge of the US response to the looming global health crisis.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the outbreak a "crisis, an epidemic that is on the way".
Stocks sunk deeper into the red, oil prices fell and US Treasuries rallied into record territory as more signs of the global spread of the virus heightened fears of a pandemic.
The rapid spread of the virus in different places - notably Italy, Iran and South Korea - in recent days has met the definition for a pandemic, and raised alarm.
The World Health Organization has not used the word pandemic to describe this outbreak.
In Japan, a woman has tested positive for the virus for a second time, the first known person in the country to do so, raising new concern about it.
A rash of countries have reported their first cases in the past couple of days with the latest being Denmark, in a man who returned from a ski holiday in Italy, and Estonia, in a man returning from Iran, media reported.
The US State Department issued a new travel warning for South Korea after the US military reported on Wednesday its first case of the coronavirus, in a 23-year-old soldier based near the South Korean city of Daegu.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
