China coronavirus: Singapore confirms first case from Wuhan; second case suspected

Authorities are looking to identify and quarantine those who had been in close contact with the 66-year-old man from Wuhan

The announcement came as Vietnam said two Chinese men were confirmed to be infected, while India said an Indian nurse in Saudi Arabia had caught the coronavirus

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A staff member at Changi Airport screens the body temperatures of arriving passengers on January 22, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 9:30pm, 23 Jan 2020Updated: 8:58am, 24 Jan 2020

Singapore on Thursday confirmed its first case of the China coronavirus that has so far infected more than 830 people and killed 25.

The ministry of health (MOH) said a Chinese national who arrived in Singapore on January 20 with his family had tested positive for the virus.

The patient, a 66-year-old man, was warded in an isolation room in the Singapore General Hospital (SGH). He was in a stable condition.

The man was a resident of Wuhan, a Chinese city of 11 million that is ground zero of the outbreak that has spread to Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and Vietnam, where two cases were confirmed on Thursday.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday said the coronavirus has spread more quickly than anticipated and it was just a matter of time before Singapore was affected.

“Certainly it’s gone to many cities outside of China and I fully expect that it’ll be in Singapore before too long, one way or another,” he told Bloomberg in an interview in Davos.

Lee said that the virus so far does not seem to be as lethal as Sars, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that killed almost 800 people after it broke out in 2003. However, it can “mutate and the next virus which comes along could be worse, easily”.