Over 20 Passengers Left Diamond Princess Untested For COVID-19 - Japanese Health Minister

TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd February, 2020) Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said at a press conference on Saturday that 23 of those disembarked from quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess in the Japanese port of Yokohama earlier this week had not been tested for the novel coronavirus, dubbed COVID-2019, during the quarantine.

According to the minister, the error was revealed late on Thursday. Among those who did not pass the test for the virus are 19 Japanese citizens and four foreigners. They were asked to be tested and, in case of symptoms, in particular fever or cough, contact a medical institution. Three of them have already been tested negative for the virus, Kato said, adding that test of the remaining 20 people are currently being agreed.

"We are deeply sorry. We will thoroughly make sure that this kind of mistake does not happen again," Kato said, as quoted by the Japan Times newspaper.

The minister specified that these 23 people had been tested negative for the virus before February 5, when quarantine was officially introduced on board the cruise liner. Later, from February 5 to 19, these passengers were not tested, as they were absent in their places at the time of the medical rounds. The passengers were allowed to disembark based on negative results obtained before the quarantine period.

As of Saturday, 758 cases of new-type coronavirus infection have been confirmed in Japan, including 634 cases aboard the Diamond Princess, 110 those infected inside Japan and 14 those who arrived from China's Wuhan, the epidemic's epicenter.

On Friday, Japanese authorities completed the first phase of evacuation from the ship after a two-week quarantine, letting 970 passengers ashore. About 1,200 people, including crew members and those passengers who have been in close contact with someone infected, remain on the ship. On Saturday, another 100 more people left the ship and all of them were transferred to a hostel of an educational institution in Saitama Prefecture, where they will spend some more time to rule out the infection.

The new coronavirus was first detected in China in late December and has since spread to more than 25 other countries, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. The outbreak has already left over 77,000 people infected worldwide and resulted in more than 2,300 deaths.