Coronavirus: Shanghai building new infectious disease hospital for patients

City is the latest of more than a dozen in China racing to open facilities to treat growing number of cases

It will be an extension of public health clinic and will have negative pressure wards, where air flows in but not out, and 200 beds

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Shanghai’s new infectious disease hospital is being built in suburban Jinshan in the southwest – far from its glitzy financial district and the Bund. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 10:00pm, 10 Feb 2020Updated: 4:42pm, 14 Feb 2020

Shanghai, China’s most international city and financial centre, is building a new hospital to handle coronavirus patients as the deadly disease continues to spread across the country.

Hundreds of workers are building the infectious disease facility in suburban Jinshan in the southwest – far from the city’s glitzy Lujiazui financial district, and Shanghai’s famous Bund waterfront area.

The new hospital will be an extension of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre, where all of the city’s coronavirus patients – currently 299 of them – are being treated.

Wu Jinglei, director of Shanghai’s health commission, told media on Monday that the new hospital was needed as a contingency measure if the number of patients in the city increased.

According to Wu, the new hospital plan was originally made back in 2003, with land put aside for a future expansion when it was needed. Now it was being put into action to cope with the outbreak, he said, without saying when it would be ready.

The pneumonia-like illness has infected more than 40,000 people and killed 910, almost all of them in mainland China, since the outbreak began in December. Cases have also been reported in more than 20 other countries around the world.

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