Equatorial Guinea has quarantined four travellers who arrived from Beijing, the government said on Wednesday, in one of the first such measures by an African country since the outbreak of the new coronavirus.

The four had arrived on Tuesday aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight at the airport in the capital of Malabo, the government of the small central African state said in a statement.

On Monday, the prime minister's office had announced that all passengers from China would be placed in quarantine for 14 days, "corresponding to the incubation period of the disease."

There have been no declared cases of the novel coronavirus in the country.

An oil-rich state with an entrenched record of authoritarian rule and poverty, Equatorial Guinea has developed close economic ties with Beijing.

Chinese companies have been awarded a string of contracts for infrastructure projects.

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© 2020 AFP