Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello 3rd on Thursday said a Filipino woman working in Dubai died after being infected with a coronavirus.

Bello said the Pathology and Genetics Department of Dubai’s Health Authority has yet to determine if the woman was infected with the 2019-nCoV that has killed 563 people in China, Hong Kong and the Philippines.





The victim was identified as Amalia Collado Dapronoza, 58.

Bello said Dubai authorities are waiting for the result of the test done by Australia.

The death of Dapromoza was reported as the Department of Health admitted on Thursday that the number of persons under observation for the 2019-nCoV rose to 178 from 133.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd said out of the 178 patients, 48 tested negative for the 2019-nCoV.

Ten of the people under investigation refused to be hospitalized, but Duque said Health officials had coordinated with the Philippine National Police to “force” these patients to go be isolated in a hospital.

The Philippines has three confirmed cases of the PNP. The remains of the lone fatality, a Chinese, have yet to be cremated.

Meanwhile, 45 Filipinos from Wuhan, China are set to arrive on February 9. They will be quarantined at a building in New Clark City’s athlete’s village, which was used during the 30th Southeast Asian Games last year.

The Health secretary said the facility, offered by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, is better than the Fort Magsaysay drug rehabilitation center in Nueva Ecija.

Toll soars

China’s coronavirus crisis deepened on Thursday with the death toll soaring to 563, as thousands of people trapped on quarantined cruise ships added to the global panic about the epidemic.

More than 28,000 people have now been infected across China as authorities struggle to contain the outbreak despite compelling millions to stay indoors in a growing number of cities.

Two dozens of countries have confirmed cases of the respiratory disease, which emerged from a market selling exotic animals in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

Thousands of people on cruise ships in Hong Kong and Japan now face an agonizing wait to find out if more among them have been infected.

At least 20 people on board the Diamond Princess have tested positive so far, while some 3,700 passengers and crew from over 50 countries have been confined to quarters aboard the cruise ship off Yokohama since Monday night.

In Hong Kong, 3,600 people were preparing to spend a second night confined aboard the World Dream as authorities conducted health checks after eight former passengers tested positive for the virus.

On Thursday, Health officials in the financial hub said they were also asking some 5,000 Hong Kongers who had taken trips on the ship since mid-January to contact them.

Hong Kong has been particularly nervous, as the disease has revived memories of another coronavirus, the one that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly 300 people in the city and another 349 in the Chinese mainland in 2002 and 2003.

Panic buyers in the semi-autonomous city left shelves of toilet paper empty at supermarkets following false online claims of shortages, prompting authorities to appeal for calm.

One person has died after contracting the virus in Hong Kong so far.

WITH JOHN ERIC MENDOZA AND AFP