Wuhan Records First Imported Case Of COVID-19 After Only 1 Infection In 10 Days

The city of Wuhan in China, where the deadly coronavirus disease was first identified, has recorded its first imported case after a Chinese student studying in UK returned to the country and tested positive for the virus.

The city had last week declared that it had largely curbed the COVID-19 outbreak after it reported only one new infection in 10 days.

According to Wuhan Municipal Health Commission (WMHC) on Wednesday, the 16-year-old student, surnamed Zhou, lives in the city’s Caidian District and studies in the UK.

It disclosed that the teenager boarded a plane in the Newcastle International Airport on March 21 and arrived in the Beijing Capital International Airport the next day after stopping over in Dubai.

After passing medical checks at the airport, he was taken to a single room to undergo medical observation.

He was arranged to travel to his hometown from Beijing on March 23 by high-speed train and put into quarantine at an isolation centre.

The authority said Zhou showed no symptoms of the disease. But the result of his nucleic acid test, which can detect the coronavirus, came back positive on March 28.

He was taken to the Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital on the same day as a suspected asymptomatic case and was diagnosed with the disease on Tuesday.

Not less than 2,553 have died of COVID-19 and 50,007 have contracted the disease in China.