Passengers on last Wuhan-Rome flight virus free

last Rome-bound flight to leave Wuhan before Chinese city was closed off arrived at Fiumici airport at dawn on Thursday.

202 passengers were transported by bus to a special airport infrastructure where health workers decked out in sanitary suits with goggles and masks were waiting to conduct body temperature checks to see if travelers might be carrying coronavirus.

passengers filled out questionnaires detailing where y h been before passing through a body temperature screening.

A special Red Cross ambulance with a sealed area inside and special air filters was standing by to transport any ill passengers to hospital.

However, re were cases of fever among passengers.

illnesses from a newly identified coronavirus first appeared last month in Wuhan, an industrial and transportation hub in central China's Hubei province.

vast majority of mainland China's 571 cases have been in city.

Or cases have been reported in United States, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

One case was confirmed Thursday in Hong Kong after one was earlier confirmed in Macao. Most cases outside China were people from Wuhan or who h recently traveled re.

A total of 17 people have died, all of m in and around Wuhan. ir aver was 73, with oldest 89 and youngest 48.

coronavirus family includes common cold as well as viruses that cause more serious illnesses, such as SARS outbreak that spre from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002-2003 and killed about 800 people, and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, which developed from camels.

Many countries are screening travellers from China for illness, especially those arriving from Wuhan.