Beijing/Wuhan: Twenty-nine foreign nationals in China were infected with the novel coronavirus and 18 of them have recovered, a Chinese official said Thursday.
Ding Xiangyang, deputy secretary-general of the State Council, told the media in Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, that 18 of the 27 patients have been discharged from hospitals. Nine are in quarantine and receiving treatment at hospitals while two others have died. He, however, did not disclose the nationalities of the patients.
An elderly American and a Japanese national died due to the virus in Wuhan, the capital of the worst-hit Hubei province.
Earlier, four Pakistanis contracted the disease. Chinese officials said three of them had recovered and discharged from the hospitals.
As the virus fears grow with each passing day, India has announced plans to operate a third special flight to airlift about 100 Indians who are still in Hubei province. India so far evacuated 647 Indians and seven Maldivians from the virus-hit Wuhan city early this month.
A number of countries including US, UK, Japan Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have evacuated hundreds of their nationals while about 800 to 1,000 Pakistanis are still in the city.
In a separate development in Islamabad angry parents of hundreds of Pakistani students stuck in Hubei province have served a three-day ultimatum to the government to evacuate their children as they confronted senior officials for being insensitive to their plight.
“You cannot understand our plight because this is a matter concerning our children, not yours,” one of the parents shouted at Prime Minister’s Special Advisers on Health and Overseas Pakistanis, Dr Zafar Mirza and Syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, as they held a briefing session here for the parents on the orders of the Islamabad High Court.
Many students and their families have expressed growing frustration as the death toll in China mounted. They have pointed to other countries, including neighbouring India and Bangladesh, evacuating their citizens from Wuhan city and Hubei province, ‘The Express Tribune’ reported.
The government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan has so far ruled out bringing home the more than 1,000 students in Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, where three-quarters of the more than 2,000 deaths from the outbreak of the flu-like virus had been recorded, it noted.
Agencies