China sends hundreds of military medics to Wuhan coronavirus front line

Specialists from armed forces sent in to epicentre to relieve hospital staff stretched by overwhelming caseload

No sign yet that wider involvement of the People’s Liberation Army is required, retired colonel says

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Military medical workers prepare to leave Chongqing for Wuhan on Friday night. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 9:00pm, 25 Jan 2020Updated: 2:18pm, 17 Feb 2020

China has deployed 450 medical staff from the military to the epicentre of a deadly coronavirus outbreak that has spread around the world, including to the United States, France and Nepal.

Three military transport aircraft, carrying doctors, nurses and medical supplies of masks and medicines from Shanghai, Chongqing and Xian, landed at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Hubei province in central China late on Friday night, according to the Ministry of National Defence.

The ministry said the personnel were all top specialists in respiratory and infectious diseases as well as intensive care from hospitals affiliated with the army, navy and air force. They would help ease the burden on staff at hospitals inundated with cases of the pneumonia-like illness.

Some of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) staff had experience dealing with emergencies such as the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the Ebola virus crisis between 2014 and 2016, the ministry said.

The deployment of PLA medical personnel to Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people, comes as the outbreak of viral pneumonia, first identified in a seafood market in the city in December, spreads across the country and overseas, with cases reported in Macau, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia as well as Australia, the US and Nepal.