KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 — South Korea confirmed today its first case of a new coronavirus from China infecting a Chinese traveller from Wuhan.
Reuters reported that the patient was a 35-year-old Chinese woman who flew from her resident city of Wuhan in China to Incheon international airport yesterday.
She was reportedly isolated upon entering South Korea with symptoms like high fever.
“The confirmed patient was identified in the quarantine phase and there is no community exposure. Those that have come in contact, including passengers and aircraft crew, are currently being investigated,” South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was quoted saying.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Korean authorities said the Chinese patient did not visit markets in Wuhan or have contact with animals or other confirmed cases. The Wuhan pneumonia outbreak was first linked to a seafood market in the central Chinese city.
The total number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus has now reached 205, including three deaths in Wuhan, said the WHO.
Two cases of the new coronavirus from China were confirmed in Thailand and one in Japan.
The WHO previously said the coronavirus, whose origin is unknown, could be caused by a newly emerging member of the family of viruses that caused the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak — which infected over 8,000 people and killed almost 800 in 2003 worldwide, including a significant number in China.
