Dubai, Feb 27: Twenty two people have died so far from the new coronavirus in Iran, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported in a chart it published on Thursday.
The number of people diagnosed with the disease is 141, the chart showed. It did not specify whether those who have died were included in the tally of those infected.
Iranian officials on Wednesday reported a total of 139 cases of coronavirus and 19 deaths.
A shrimp seller at the wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan believed to be the centre of the coronavirus pandemic, may be the first person to have tested positive for the disease, a media report said on Saturday.
The report by the London-based Metro newspaper said that 57-year-old woman, named by the Wall Street Journal as Wei Guixian, was selling shrimp at the Huanan Seafood Market when she developed what she thought was a cold last December.
Chinese digital news outlet, The Paper has said that she may be epatient zero'.
Wei was told by doctors her illness was "ruthless" and other workers at the market had come to the Wuhan Union Hospital with the same symptoms, the Metro newspaper report quoted the outlet as saying.
"Every winter, I suffer from the flu, so I thought it was the flu," the woman was quoted as saying by The Paper news outlet.
The shrimp seller added that she believed she contracted the coronavirus from the shared toilet in the market.
She said the fatal disease would have killed fewer people if the government had acted sooner.
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has confirmed that Wei was among the first 27 people to test positive for the coronavirus.
It said she was one of 24 cases with direct links to the market, the Metro newspaper reported.
Though Wei may be "patient zero", it does not mean she is the first person to have contracted the virus, added the Metro report.
Chinese researchers have claimed that the first person diagnosed with the airborne virus had no contact with the seafood market and was identified on December 1, 2019.
Wei was later quarantined when a connection was made between the bug and the market before recovering in January.
As of Saturday, the global number of coronavirus cases stood at 104,837 with 27,862 deaths, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.
The US has the highest number of cases at 104,837, followed by Italy 86,498 and China 81,948.
Italy has recorded the highest number of fatalities with 9,134 deaths, followed by Spain and China, at 5,138 and 3,299, respectively.
Beijing, Jul 6: A city in northern China on Sunday sounded an alert after a suspected case of bubonic plague was reported, according to official media here.
Bayannur, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, announced a level III warning of plague prevention and control, state-run People’s Daily Online reported.
The suspected bubonic plague case was reported on Saturday by a hospital in Bayannur. The local health authority announced that the warning period will continue until the end of 2020.
"At present, there is a risk of a human plague epidemic spreading in this city. The public should improve its self-protection awareness and ability, and report abnormal health conditions promptly,” the local health authority said.
On July 1, state-run Xinhua news agency said that two suspected cases of bubonic plague reported in Khovd province in western Mongolia have been confirmed by lab test results.
The confirmed cases are a 27-year-old resident and his 17-year-old brother, who are being treated at two separate hospitals in their province, it quoted a health official as saying.
The brothers ate marmot meat, the health official said, warning people not to eat marmot meat.
A total of 146 people who had contact with them have been isolated and treated at local hospitals, according to Narangerel.
Bubonic plague is a bacterial disease that is spread by fleas living on wild rodents such as marmots. It can kill an adult in less than 24 hours if not treated in time, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
A couple died of bubonic plague in the western Mongolian province of Bayan-Ulgii last year after eating raw marmot meat.
The news of bubonic plague came after Chinese researchers issued an early warning over another potential pandemic caused by an influenza virus in pigs.
Scientists from China Agricultural University, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutes detected a pig influenza virus bearing genotype 4 (G4), which is contagious among pigs and has the possibility of jumping to humans, as the G4 virus is able to bind with human cells, state-run Global Times reported last week.
The researchers are concerned that it could mutate further so that it can spread easily from person to person, and trigger a global outbreak, BBC reported.
"Controlling the prevailing G4 EA H1N1 viruses in pigs and close monitoring in human populations, especially workers in the swine industry, should be urgently implemented," Chinese researchers warned in the paper.
The new diseases were reported even as China grappled with the second attack of Covid-19 in Beijing after controlling it in Wuhan where it was first reported in December last year.
On Saturday, Beijing reported a single-digit Covid-19, local authorities said Sunday.
The number of newly confirmed Covid-19 cases reached a peak in Beijing on June 13 and 14 and then started declining in general, Xinhua quoted local officials as saying.
From June 11 to July 4, the city reported 334 confirmed locally transmitted cases, 47 per cent of whom are workers of the Xinfadi wholesale food market, the official said.
Islamabad/Dhaka, May 25: The coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns coupled with travel restrictions and social distancing norms have muted the Eid celebrations in Pakistan and Bangladesh as worshippers in the two Muslim-majority countries marked the end of Ramzan in strictly-regulated prayer congregations.
A large number of people in the two countries were forced to stay indoors on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramzan, due to the fears of contracting the novel coronavirus which has killed nearly 3.5 lakh people and infected over 5.4 million across the world.
In Pakistan, the government has issued strict instructions to observe social distancing while offering Eid prayers and asked people to avoid visiting relatives and hosting parties.
As the railways remained closed, many people could not travel to their hometowns for the most important festival.
Eid congregations were held at open places, mosques and Eidgahs in all major cities and towns while following strict standard operating procedures (SOPs) of social distancing and other precautionary measures. But in some areas, the people did not adhere to the SOPs and were seen thronging to their favourite shops to celebrate Eid.
Pakistan Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Health Zafar Mirza on Friday said the deadly infection would continue to multiply if precautions are not taken.
Earlier this month, the government announced the lifting of the countrywide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 in phases, even as infections continued to rise in the country.
Pakistan's coronavirus cases on Monday reached 56,349 with 1,748 new patients while the death toll climbed to 1,167 after 34 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours.
The trajectory showed that the number was steadily going up with authorities fearing a rise in cases in the wake of the easing of lockdown before Eid.
But Prime Minister Imran Khan cited the economic havoc the virus restrictions had wreaked on citizens as the reason behind the decision to ease the restrictions.
He urged Pakistanis to forgo the traditional Eid festivity in view of the hundreds of fatalities caused by the coronavirus and the lives lost in Friday's plane crash in Karachi.
Ninety-seven people, including nine children, were killed and two passengers miraculously survived a fiery crash when a Pakistan International Airlines plane with 99 travellers on board plunged into a densely populated residential area near the Jinnah International Airport.
Most of the victims were travelling home to celebrate Eid.
In Bangladesh, millions of Muslims joined the strictly-regulated prayer congregations across the country.
Thousands of worshippers attended the prayer services at the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka while following the health and social distancing protocols to limit the spread of the coronavirus, bdnews24.com reported.
Despite the government directive for children and senior citizens not to participate in Eid prayers, many children and people aged over 60 attended the Eid prayers. Although social distancing rules were maintained to a large extent, people were seen flouting the norms, the report said.
As per the government order, no Eid congregation will be held in an open space, but people can perform the Eid prayers in mosques. However, everyone coming to the mosques for prayer must wear a mask, follow social distancing and other hygiene rules, said Islamic Foundation Secretary Kazi Nurul Islam.
On Sunday, Bangladesh reported 28 new fatalities, the highest single-day increase, bringing the death toll to 480.
The number of coronavirus cases in the country rose to 33,610 after 1,532 people tested positive on Sunday.
Comments
Add new comment