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”.

The epidemic is a good example of why countries need to work together, Lee said. To counter it, countries need to trust one another, sharing data and information such as how many people have been infected and whether systems are coping well or breaking down. Unless countries can share such information, “we’re going to have a big problem for mankind,” Lee said. “Walls are in fashion but viruses can leap over walls,” he said.

The patient came to Singapore from Guangzhou on a China Southern flight at 10.40pm on Monday. He was travelling with nine other companions. He developed a fever and cough the next day and went to SGH’s emergency department on Wednesday. He was immediately admitted and isolated.

The man was diagnosed with pneumonia and identified as a suspect case and on Thursday tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The ministry of health (MOH) said the patient did not visit the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, before he flew to Singapore.

While in Singapore, the Wuhan resident travelled via a chartered car from Changi Airport to his hotel at Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort. He remained in the vicinity of his hotel throughout his stay and he took a taxi to the SGH emergency department.

The ministry said it was identifying those who have had close contact with the man, including his nine travelling companions, and 30 other passengers who sat two rows in front and behind him on the plane.

The man’s son, who accompanied him to SGH, was warded. Another person in the man’s travel group, a 37-year-old man from Wuhan, had also been admitted to hospital as a suspect case.

The MOH said it would quarantine and monitor the identified persons for 14 days since their last contact with the man, to see if any symptoms would develop.

Others who had come into contact with the man but were at a low risk of being infected would also be under surveillance, with daily contact to monitor their health status.

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This potential patient was a 53-year-old woman, who was also from Wuhan.

The ministry was notified of the case on Thursday morning at about 3am. She was warded at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and her condition was stable.

The ministry said public hospitals had implemented precautionary measures to screen and manage suspected and confirmed cases. Doctors and healthcare workers had also been reminded to be vigilant and maintain strict infection control and prevention measures.

The ministry said it expected to see more suspected and imported cases given the high volume of international travel to Singapore, and urged the public to remain calm and vigilant.

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He said Singapore was better prepared now to handle the outbreak, as compared with 2003, when the Sars virus broke out. The country now had a Communicable Diseases Centre at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, he said.

Lee added that science had made a lot of progress since Sars, with scientists identifying and sequencing the new coronavirus faster than with Sars, and sharing the information quickly with other countries.

China had also made progress in dealing with such public health issues, added Lee.

“They understand now that pretending that nothing is wrong is not the right thing to do and they have to come out, and the more open they are, the more effective they can be in dealing with it and better that they can cooperate with other countries,” he said in Davos.

Lee said that while the current coronavirus was not as lethal as Sars, there was a possibility of the virus mutating and Singapore had to be well prepared, which was why the city state had set up a multi-ministries taskforce co-led by the minister for health and minister for national development.

Singapore’s case on Thursday came on the same day Vietnam confirmed two Chinese nationals had tested positive for coronavirus, but were “in good condition”, the health ministry said.

The father and son pair were hospitalised on Wednesday after showing signs of fever and were being treated at the Cho Ray hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, the ministry said.

The son had recently arrived in Vietnam from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, and had travelled to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi and the southern city of Nha Trang before being hospitalised.

China coronavirus: travellers make it home on last flights out of Wuhan

“The ministry of health will continue to monitor for suspected symptoms at airports in Nha Trang and Danang where, many Chinese visitors arrive,” deputy health minister Nguyen Truong Son said in a ministry statement. “All visitors from infected areas will be closely tracked and must undergo health checks.”

India’s foreign minister on Thursday also confirmed an Indian nurse working in Saudi Arabia had been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

“Affected nurse is being treated at Aseer National Hospital and is recovering well,” he said on Twitter.

Additional reporting by AFP, Reuters, Bloomberg