Wuhan, January 27: An Air India Boeing 747 is on standby for the evacuation of Indians from Chinese city Wuhan due to scare of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in the country. According to a tweet by ANI, the carrier is waiting for Government decision. On Monday, the Chinese health authorities informed that 80 people had lost their lives due to the flu-like virus while the number of those infected reached 2,744. Amid its efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, China has announced the extension of the Spring Festival holiday until February 2.

The National Health Commission on Monday informed that among the number of people infected, 461 were in critical condition. The Commission revealed that till Sunday saw 769 new confirmed cases, 3,806 new suspected cases and 24 deaths (all in Hubei province). Apart from China, eight confirmed cases in Thailand, five in the US, four each in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, France and Japan, three in South Korea, two in Vietnam and one each in Nepal and Canada.

Here's the tweet:

The WHO, in its statement, said that on December 31, 2019,  the global agency was alerted with several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China and a week later, on 7 January, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus. The spread of the virus raised concern because when it was new and authotities did not how it would affect people. Also, the virus did not match other known virus.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 27, 2020 01:38 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).