India, Philippines report first cases of the new coronavirus
BENGALURU/MANILA: India said a woman in the southern state of Kerala had tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.
The patient was a student at Wuhan University in China, India's government said in a statement.
It added that she was in a stable condition and in isolation in hospital, Reuters reported.
"We had sent blood samples of 20 people from Kerala,... The sample of a female student from Wuhan has come back as positive," the state's health minister, Ms K.K. Shylaja, said.
The patient was being treated in an isolation ward in a hospital in the district of Thrissur, Ms Shylaja said.
The Indian government has taken measures to ensure that all people arriving from China report to the health authorities.
A total of 806 people who recently returned from China were under observation in Kerala for any signs of the virus, the state government said on Wednesday.
A senior Indian government official said bringing Indian nationals home from Wuhan was not the best option because of the risk of infection.
ON STANDBY
But an aircraft was on standby and facilities to quarantine them have been identified, Reuters reported.
In the Philippines, a 38-year-old Chinese woman, now in a hospital in Manila, had tested positive for the Wuhan virus, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said at a news briefing.
The woman arrived on Jan 21 from Wuhan, via Hong Kong, and had been to the cities of Cebu and Dumaguete, popular tourist destinations in the central Philippines, The Straits Times reported.
She went to a hospital on Jan 25 with a mild cough. She was admitted and tested for the Wuhan virus.
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