Macao confirms first novel coronavirus case

MACAO - The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center of China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government said on Wednesday that the first case of novel coronavirus has been reported in a local hospital.

A 52-year-old woman traveling from Wuhan in Central China was diagnosed with the disease by Macao's Centro Hospitalar Conde de Sao Januario on Tuesday afternoon and has been quarantined and treated in the hospital.

The patient had taken a high-speed train to Zhuhai of Guangdong province and arrived in Macao through the Border Gate on Sunday, and checked into a hotel in Macao. She had a sore throat and a cough for about a week before she went to the hospital by herself at 6 pm local time (1000 GMT) on Tuesday.

The patient began to develop a fever without any breathing difficulties after she has been quarantined in the hospital. Before going to the hospital, she had remained in the hotel and the casino for the most of the time and had gone out for meals.

There have been three people in close contact with her in Macao, and they were under quarantine observation for 14 days, the center added. All their rooms, including the one of the patient, were disinfected soon after.

The SAR government's Health Bureau Director Lei Chin Ion said the confirmed patient would not been highly contagious, but it still needs the medical observation result of the people in close contact with her.

Chinese health authorities said Wednesday that over 440 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) had been reported in 13 provincial-level regions in the country by Tuesday.

Overseas, one case has been confirmed in Japan, three in Thailand, one in South Korea and one in the United States.