Brazil to declare emergency, quarantine people returning from coronavirus-hit Wuhan

  04 February 2020    Read: 1187
Brazil to declare emergency, quarantine people returning from coronavirus-hit Wuhan

Alarmed by the growing risks of a new coronavirus, Brazil has decided to repatriate Brazilians from Wuhan, China, and will declare a national health emergency, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said on Monday .

A chartered plane would be sent to pick up 40 of the 55 Brazilians in Wuhan who have asked to be evacuated from the city at the center of a coronavirus outbreak, Mandetta said. They would be quarantined for 18 days at a military base, he said.

President Jair Bolsonaro said last week that repatriating Brazilians from Wuhan would not be “opportune” as it could put the population back home at risk. But he changed his mind over the weekend when Brazilians in Wuhan posted a video appealing to Bolsonaro to get them out.

In their six-minute video here posted on Youtube, the Brazilians noted that other nations where preparing to evacuate their citizens with the help of Chinese authorities, and they pleaded with Bolsonaro and Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo to rescue them.

 

reuters

 


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