First suspected case of coronavirus in New Zealand
First suspected case of coronavirus in New Zealand
A possible case of the new coronavirus has been found in Auckland, with test results expected on Saturday.
Ministry of Health Director-General Dr Ashley Bloomfield said on Friday afternoon that the person fitted the definition of a suspected case and was being managed appropriately. The person had come forward to Auckland Hospital, and was in isolation there, he said.
Bloomfield would not say if the person was from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, or a New Zealand citizen.
There was "no blame or shame", he said.
A pilot wearing a protective suit parks a cargo plane at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, on January 28.
Bloomfield had provided the Minister of Health with options for quarantine, but would not say where or how many options there were.
The World Health Organisation has declared that the coronavirus epidemic in China now constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. But New Zealand authorities say there are no plans to screen passengers arriving from coronavirus-affected countries.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the decision after a meeting of its emergency committee, an independent panel of experts, amid mounting evidence of the virus' spread to some 19 countries.
A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but may also prompt nervous governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries.
Bloomfield updated media on Friday afternoon following a meeting of the Government's top level security committee, which Stuff revealed was quietly convened earlier this week. The Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination - otherwise known as ODESC - manages national security and response during an emerging or security event.
The meeting, triggered by the WHO declaration, discussed the logistics for the planning to get Kiwis out of Wuhan and getting the clearance from China, he said.
The work to date had been appropriate and effective and in line with pandemic plan in place, the committee confirmed.
New evidence confirmed the initial assessments, and the mortality rate of below 2 to 3 per cent which was not increasing, he said.
VIRUS SPREAD THE MAIN CONCERN
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
Air New Zealand has announced it will cut back on flights to Shanghai, in anticipation of a reduced desire to travel to China.
Normally seven weekly return flights travel from Auckland to Shanghai, this will be reduced to four weekly flights between February 18 and March 31. Those with tickets for cancelled flights will be contacted directly.
Some countries are curtailing flights to China, with American and Unite Airlines, British Airways German carrier Lufthansa, Israel's El Al, Scandinavian Airlines, Egypt Air, Turkish Airlines suspending flights, as did some in India and Kazakhstan.
The WHO's Ghebreyesus believes the declaration of an emergency, "is not a vote of non-confidence in China...on the contrary, WHO continues to have the confidence in China's capacity to control the outbreak.
"Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it."
Bloomfield said earlier on Friday: "The advice to all counties [from WHO] was to be prepared for containment, active surveillance, early detection and trace management, and prevention of onward spread. And to share full data with WHO.
"We have acted very much in line with the WHO advice and in accordance with our pandemic plan."
Bloomfield said that anyone who has travelled to Wuhan or to Hubei providence should self isolate for the next few days.
New Zealand can also now test for the virus within hours. Bloomfield said Crown research body ESR will run a batch of tests daily.
Bloomfield added that Kiwis should be "no more concerned than they were yesterday. We are concerned but not alarmed".
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says well over a hundred Kiwis have registered to get on an evacuation flight out of Wuhan.
New Zealand still had to wait on clearance for the flight to leave but good progress was being made with the Chinese authorities, logistics and managing the protocols of those returning, she said.
Some of the countries who had managed to extract their citizens had waited up to a week for clearance, she said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Health Minister David Clark and Ministry of Health Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield update media on coronavirus becoming an officially notified virus on Thursday.
She said MFAT was working on the cost of the 'nominal fee' passengers would have to pay.
It would be very likely the flight would assist other nationalities, but priority would be given to New Zealand's Pacific neighbours, she said.
The emphasis of the WHO emergency declaration was for support to go to health systems that may not be able to cope, she said.
"We are working with the governments of the Pacific who may need to get their citizens out and to assist with quarantine measures."
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand was using its relationship with China to help get permission for the evacuation of Kiwis.
It has been reported that Australia, which announced a partnership with New Zealand this week, is yet to gain permission from the Chinese government to evacuate.
While Peters could not comment on what was happening with Australia, he did not think it would have any bearing on the Air New Zealand charter flight.
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand was using its relationship with China to help get permission for the evacuation of Kiwis from Wuhan.
New Zealand is at stage two of its pandemic plan so did not need to take radical steps, according to National Party health spokesman Michael Woodhouse.
However, it was important that public health officials were ready to go if they needed to ramp up to the stage three of stamp out the virus, he said. That would only be activated when there was evidence of the virus in New Zealand.
He believed the Ministry of Health should now increase its efforts to manage the risk at the border - something it should have done days ago, Woodhouse said.
The ministry should also be working with immigration officials to identify passengers arriving from affected countries, not just flights from China, he said.
He believed every arriving passenger, in that risk category, should be provided with information on arrival.
A community worker checks the temperature of courier in an Express station in Hubei Province, Wuhan, China. Due to a transit shut down and lack of supplies, couriers have became the city's suppliers.
Chinese officials added more than 1500 new cases of the coronavirus as countries stepped up their efforts to evacuate their citizens trapped in Wuhan.
About 50 million people in Hubei province have been restricted to their region as authorities try to stem the spread of the virus. Japan has sent a second flight to Wuhan, and a third is planned.
With experts saying a vaccine is not imminent, more international cases of the illness appeared on Friday. Australia, Vietnam and South Korea all announced new coronavirus infections, while India and the Philippines had their first ones.
The number of countries with human to human transmission of coronavirus now numbers five: The United States, Germany, Japan, Vietnam and China, which includes the self-governing island of Taiwan.
Russia is closing its entire border with China, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced on Friday. Although no cases of the disease have surfaced in Russia, the country does share one of the world's longest international borders with China.
Chinese official data now shows 8149 confirmed coronavirus cases in the country with 171 deaths, according to state media outlets.
The figure includes nine cases in the self-governing island of Taiwan.
At least 96 cases have been recorded outside of mainland China, and three other countries have reported person-to-person transmission of the virus.
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