Coronavirus outbreak kills nearly 500; WHO says 'no known effective cure': Key points

The government has issued an updated travel advisory saying the existing visas (including e-visa already issued) are no longer valid for any foreign national travelling from China.

In the travel advisory, the health ministry again asked people to refrain from travelling to China in view of the coronavirus outbreak in its Hubei province and said travellers on return from the neighbouring country could be quarantined.

On February 2, India had temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China in view of the coronavirus outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Wednesday's advisory said anyone with travel history of China since January 15 could be quarantined.

Meanwhile, cabinet secretary held a high-level meeting to review the actions taken for the management of nCoV and preparedness of states.

Wuhan's vice party chief Hu Lishan has said that the coronavirus situation in the Chinese city is still severe and the city faces many challenges. Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, has quarantined people in hotels, schools and private hospitals. There are 132 such centres with 12,571 beds available as of Tuesday, Hu told a news conference.

The World Health Organization played down media reports of "breakthrough" drugs being discovered to treat people infected with the new coronavirus, which is causing an epidemic in China and has spread to at least 20 other countries. A Chinese TV report said researchers at Zhejiang University had found an effective drug for the virus, while Britain's Sky News said researchers had made a "significant breakthrough" in developing a vaccine. Oil prices jumped on the reports.

Asked about the reports, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said: "There are no known effective therapeutics against this 2019-nCoV (virus) and the WHO recommends enrolment into a randomized controlled trial to test efficacy and safety." The process of developing and testing drugs or vaccines against a new pathogen normally takes many years and is often fraught with pitfalls and failures.

The Delhi government has issued a health advisory on the novel coronavirus (nCov) and prescribed do's and dont's for the public to ward off any infection, including avoiding frozen meat, officials said. A round-the-clock control room has also been set up at the Directorate General of Health Services' headquarters to address queries related to the virus.

In its health advisory, the Delhi government has asked people to exercise caution, like cleaning hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub; covering nose and mouth while coughing; sneezing using tissue; avoiding close contact with anyone with cold or flu like symptoms; avoiding frozen meat, besides isolation of symptomatic patients for at least 14 days.

Among the do's prescribed to people, the government has asked them to frequently wash hands with soap and water; avoid crowded places; stay more than an arm's length distance from persons sick with flu; take adequate sleep and rest; and drink plenty of water and consume liquid diet and eat nutritious food, the advisory said.

The Drug Controller General of India has approved the "restricted use" of a combination of drugs used widely for controlling HIV infection in public health emergency for treating those affected by novel coronavirus (nCoV), official sources said.

According to government sources, apex health research body Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had sought an emergency approval from the DCGI for the "restricted use" of the combination of two medications - lopinavir and ritonavir - for treatment of this respiratory ailment.

"We did our own docking studies and found that this could be a potentially useful drug against nCoV," an ICMR official said. This combination along with other drugs has been used in clinical trials in China, where the coronavirus first emerged, and Thailand for treating nCoV-affected patients.

The World Health Organization has called for $675 million (613 million euros) in donations for a plan to fight the novel coronavirus, mainly through investment in countries considered particularly "at risk".

"Today we're launching a strategic preparedness and response plan.... We're requesting $675 million to fund the plan for the next three months," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference in Geneva.

"Our message to the international community is invest today or pay more later," Tedros said, adding that the funding appeal was "much less than the bill we will have to pay if we do not invest in preparedness now". Tedros said $60 million of the funds would be for WHO operations while the remainder would go to countries requiring assistance to guard against the deadly virus.

The Kerala government has said three foreign nationals were among the 2,528 people under observation in the state for the novel coronavirus infection and no new cases have been reported. At least 93 people with minor symptoms of the virus have been lodged in isolation wards of various hospitals, state Health Minister K K Shailaja told reporters here. India's three positive cases for the virus has been from the state's three districts of Thrissur, Alappuzha and Kasaragod.