First case of new coronavirus detected in London

A woman who arrived in London on a flight from China is the first case of contagion of the new Covid-19 coronavirus detected in the British capital, Chris Whitty, a British government medical consultant, announced on Wednesday.

The woman, who contracted the virus in China and with the symptoms to manifest after landing at Heathrow airport, will be admitted to London’s St. Thomas hospital, which has its own facilities for the treatment of infectious diseases.

At the same time, the British Ministry of Health indicated that the 83 people who were quarantined at the Arrowe Park hospital outside Liverpool (northern England) may leave the facility on Thursday and after two weeks of hospitalization as a precaution.

British businessman Steve Walsh, considered the source of contagion for 11 cases of Covid-19 in the UK, France and Spain after attending a congress in Singapore, was discharged.

A spokesman for the British National Health Service (NHS) said that Walsh, 53, was discharged after the two tests with a 24-hour difference were negative, fully recovering from his illness.

His symptoms “were mild, it is no longer contagious and does not pose a risk to the rest of the citizens,” said the spokesman.

The epidemic caused by the coronavirus detected in Wuhan has already caused 1,115 deaths, of which 1,113 in mainland China, where more than 44,000 people are infected, 2,015 detected in the last 24 hours, according to the latest report released.

According to Beijing health officials, the total death toll in the past 24 hours was 97.

The balance is higher than that of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which between 2002 and 2003 killed 774 people worldwide, most of them in China, but the mortality rate remains lower.

The new virus, which caused one death in Hong Kong and another in the Philippines, also affects the Chinese region of Macau (8 cases of infection, because two were discharged today) and more than two dozen countries, where the cases of contagion exceed those 350.

The situation prompted the scheduling of an emergency meeting of health ministers from European Union countries for Thursday in Brussels, while the World Health Organization (WHO) sent a team of experts to China to monitor developments.

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