Coronavirus outbreak: 60 new cases identified on cruise ship off Japan coast

Japan’s Health Ministry has reportedly identified 60 more cases of coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, taking the total number of cases to 130. The state broadcaster NHK Japan, quoting the Health Ministry, confirmed that the authorities have identified 60 cases of the deadly virus.

Officials initially tested 300 people out of the 3,711 onboard and gradually evacuated the infected patients to local medical facilities. Japan has now the most number of coronavirus-infected patients after China, followed by Singapore and Thailand.

The remaining people on the cruise have been asked to stay inside their cabins with their masks on and to keep a distance from each other when out on the open deck. Japan has decided to conduct tests on all passengers before allowing them to get off the cruise.

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'Tip of the iceberg'

Katsunobu Kato, Health Minister of Japan, informed the reporters that the government is working to make medication and masks available to those infected on board, particularly for passengers those are showing severe chronic or pneumonia-like symptoms. The World Health Organization ( WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that transmission among people with no travel history to China could be the 'tip of the iceberg'.

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(With inputs from agencies)