New Delhi: 4th February Japan has quarantined a cruise ship carrying 3,500 people and was testing passengers for the new coronavirus on Tuesday after a passenger who departed in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.
Television footage showed images of several quarantine officers entering the Diamond Princess cruise ship at the port of Yokohama on Monday evening to check the health of all 2,500 passengers and 1,000 crew members.
The move comes after an 80-year-old passenger who disembarked on January 25 in Hong Kong tested positive for the deadly virus.
Japan’s top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said on Monday that Japanese authorities would quarantine the vessel, which arrived at Yokohama Bay a day earlier than originally planned.
A woman in her twenties who was sailing with her mother on the ship told private broadcaster TBS on Tuesday that all passengers “were asked to stay in their rooms to wait for virus tests”.
The health ministry said as of Monday that 20 people in Japan have tested positive for the new virus, of whom four showed no symptoms.
Japan has flown more than 500 citizens out of Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus.
