Coronavirus: China army managing supplies, medical work

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - Chinese army formally took over the supply of essential services and operations of a newly built hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus, on Monday, local media reported.

Since its outbreak in Wuhan, the central Hubei province, last December, the disease has killed 361 people in the country.

China built a hospital with 1,000 bed capacity in record 10 days exclusively for patients infected by the new disease which still stands incurable.

According to Xinhua news agency, People's Liberation Army (PLA) deployed 1,400 of its medical staff at the Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital.

Besides, the Chinese soldiers also oversee the delivery of basic essentials to people living in Wuhan, a city with 11 million population, where most of the deaths were reported.

Nearly 50 Chinese military trucks delivered 200 tons of supplies to supermarkets in Wuhan.

Some 260 army officers and 130 trucks are in use for the operations.

The death toll from the new coronavirus, the first major health crisis in China since 2003, has surpassed the death toll by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak which, spreading across the world, killed 349 in China.

The novel coronavirus has spread scare across the globe with cases confirmed in Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, the U.S., France, Germany, North Korea, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Vietnam, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., Russia, Nepal, Cambodia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Finland, and India.

One person died in Philippines while Thailand has said it got success in curing the disease. However, so far, no tangible medicine has been found to halt the spread of the disease.

- ‘Mission impossible’

Working three shifts a day, thousands of Chinese workers started on Jan. 23 to build a new makeshift hospital in Wuhan for patients infected with the virus.

The was project -- deemed “mission impossible” -- was delivered to health authorities on Sunday.

The Chinese authorities Monday said that 2,829 new cases of disease were confirmed by Sunday night, bringing the number to 17,209.

People infected with the new virus have pneumonia-like symptoms and doctors confirmed that it spreads via human-to-human transmission.

China imposed a strict lockdown in many of its major cities to stop spread of the disease.

Many countries stopped flights to China while those coming from the country are being intensely screened at airports.

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak an international emergency.