Dr M: No response from China yet on move to evacuate Malaysians from Wuhan

PUTRAJAYA: China has yet to respond to Malaysia's request to evacuate its citizens caught in the Wuhan lockdown, says the Prime Minister.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (pic) said that Malaysian officials have just initiated talks with China on the matter.

"There's no response yet (from China)," he said after a session with strategic partners of the Rural Development Ministry here on Thursday (Jan 30).

The Cabinet in its weekly meeting on Wednesday (Jan 29) had decided to bring home 78 Malaysians who are currently in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.

However, they will be quarantined for 14 days and be given a clean bill of health before they are allowed to return home.

The Japanese government had recently evacuated its citizens out of the virus-hit Wuhan city by plane.

About 206 Japanese nationals were on board the flight out.

On another matter, the Prime Minister said the government has not decided whether there is a need to halt all flights from China following the decision by the Sabah government to do this.

This follows after the Sabah government decided to temporarily suspend all scheduled and chartered flights from China to the state with immediate effect until further notice in light of the outbreak.

"We will study if there is a need to suspend all flights. For now, it is just Wuhan city and Hubei province," Dr Mahathir said.

The Malaysian government had imposed a temporary ban on Chinese citizens from Wuhan city and the surrounding Hubei province.