Yokohama: Japan has quarantined a cruise ship carrying 3,711 people and was testing those onboard for the new novel coronavirus after a former passenger was diagnosed with the illness in Hong Kong.
Eight people on the vessel, which arrived in Yokohama Bay on Monday, have symptoms such as fever, top government spokesperson Yoshihide Suga said.
Television footage showed several quarantine officers boarding the Diamond Princess on Monday evening to check all 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew.
The move comes after an 80-year-old passenger who disembarked on Jan 25 in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.
The man “did not visit a medical centre inside the ship while he was sailing with us”, cruise operator Carnival Japan said in a statement.
“According to the hospital where he is staying, his condition is stable and infection was not found among his family members who sailed with him,” the statement said.
A woman in her twenties on the ship with her mother told private broadcaster TBS yesterday that all passengers had been asked to stay in their rooms and wait for tests.
The cruise ship had already been through a quarantine procedure on Saturday at a port in Naha in Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, and quarantine officials had issued certificates allowing passengers and crew to land, Suga said.
A health ministry official said no one aboard at that time showed any symptoms, and the case of the man who disembarked in Hong Kong was not known at that time.
After his case emerged, a second quarantine was organised.
Quarantine officials are now checking the condition of everyone on board and testing those with symptoms of illness for the new coronavirus, as well as other infectious diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, a second health ministry official said. — AFP
Eight people on the vessel, which arrived in Yokohama Bay on Monday, have symptoms such as fever, top government spokesperson Yoshihide Suga said.
Television footage showed several quarantine officers boarding the Diamond Princess on Monday evening to check all 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew.
The move comes after an 80-year-old passenger who disembarked on Jan 25 in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.
The man “did not visit a medical centre inside the ship while he was sailing with us”, cruise operator Carnival Japan said in a statement.
“According to the hospital where he is staying, his condition is stable and infection was not found among his family members who sailed with him,” the statement said.
A woman in her twenties on the ship with her mother told private broadcaster TBS yesterday that all passengers had been asked to stay in their rooms and wait for tests.
The cruise ship had already been through a quarantine procedure on Saturday at a port in Naha in Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, and quarantine officials had issued certificates allowing passengers and crew to land, Suga said.
A health ministry official said no one aboard at that time showed any symptoms, and the case of the man who disembarked in Hong Kong was not known at that time.
After his case emerged, a second quarantine was organised.
Quarantine officials are now checking the condition of everyone on board and testing those with symptoms of illness for the new coronavirus, as well as other infectious diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, a second health ministry official said. — AFP
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