Coronavirus: Evacuation flight from China lands in UK as expert warns country faces risk of ‘major outbreak’

Fourth person in UK is diagnosed with illness

The final evacuation flight from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan has landed in the UK, as a leading microbiologist who helped discover Ebola warned that Britain could suffer a “major outbreak” of the virus.

Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said he was alarmed about the spread of the illness, which he warned was potentially more dangerous than Ebola.

“It’s a greater threat because of the mode of transmission. The potential for spread is much, much higher,” Mr Piot said.

“If the number of people who get infected is huge, then that will also kill a number of people.”

More than 200 passengers landed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire shortly before 7.30am on Sunday after flying out from Wuhan. The coronavirus has already killed more than 800 people and infected at least 37,000 in China.

The passengers will now be taken to the Kents Hill Park hotel and conference centre in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, where they will be quarantined for 14 days to prevent the spread of the virus.

Two British people who wanted to fly back to the UK were denied boarding after failing temperature checks in China, the UK’s ambassador to Beijing told the BBC.

“We are in touch with them and will try to support them to get them on to another country’s flights as soon as possible,” Dame Barbara Woodward said.

South Central Ambulance Service has reassured people in Milton Keynes that the evacuees’ presence in the area will not pose a risk to local residents.

However, Mr Piot has warned that it may be difficult for health officials to prevent a serious outbreak in the UK.

“In today’s world, no epidemic remains just a local affair. What happens thousands and thousands of miles from here in China has the potential of causing a major outbreak here,” the microbiologist told The Sunday Times.

Four cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the UK, after more than 600 tests by the Department of Health and Social Care in recent weeks.

The latest patient diagnosed had come into contact with a previously confirmed UK case and is being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London, chief medical officer for England Professor Chris Whitty said.

Meanwhile, French health authorities have confirmed that two people diagnosed on Sunday with the virus – one in Britain and one in Spain – were linked to a group of Britons who contracted it in a ski resort in France.

The five Britons tested positive for the virus in France on Saturday after sharing a chalet in the mountain village of Les Contamines-Montjoie ​near Mont Blanc.

“We learned that there were two other cases linked to this cluster, two adults – one who was diagnosed in the United Kingdom and the other who was diagnosed in Mallorca – linked to a stay in the apartment in Les Contamines-Montjoie,” senior health official Jerome Salomon said.

He said a school near the French ski resort would be closed for checks this week.

The four UK adults and a nine-year-old had come into contact with a British national who had recently returned from Singapore, the French health ministry said.

The death toll from the virus in China has risen to 811, surpassing the number of fatalities from Sars in the 2002-2003 outbreak.

However, China’s National Health Commission said the number of new cases on Sunday had decreased from the day before, suggesting that the spread of the disease could be restricted.

The total cases in the country increased by 2,656 in the 24 hours up to Sunday morning, down from the 3,399 new cases that were announced a day earlier.

Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that there is “no reason to panic” over the outbreak.

“The fatality rate is 2 per cent. Much lower than Sars, which was 10 per cent, and the H1N1 of 2009, which was 17 per cent. There’s no reason to panic,” Mr Liu said.

“We believe this virus is controllable, is preventable, is curable. So we are confident that with the solid leadership of the central government of China, with the united people of China behind us, and with the support of the international community, we can beat this virus.”

At the end of January, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus an international public-health emergency because of the rising number of cases outside China.

“Let me be clear: this declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, insisted.

“On the contrary, WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak.”

Additional reporting by PA