Govt raises Wuhan outbreak response level to serious

Govt raises Wuhan outbreak response level to serious

Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan. Photo: RTHK

Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan

The government on Saturday launched a new plan to respond to the mysterious respiratory disease in the mainland city of Wuhan and classified the response level as "serious".



The plan is called the Preparedness and Response Plan for Novel Infectious Disease of Public Health Significance.



The three-tier response level, including alert, serious and emergency, was adopted based on the risk assessment of the impact of the new infectious disease on people's health.



Speaking on an RTHK radio programme, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said two more people had fallen ill after returning from visits to Wuhan, raising the total number of cases here to seven.



She said the government had decided to step up its monitoring of the situation after a meeting with experts on Friday.



The number of people in Wuhan affected by the mystery illness that is similar to Sars has jumped to 44 from the earlier figure of 27, with 11 of the patients being in a serious condition.