Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) will evacuate Ukrainian tourists currently travelling in China by providing flights from Sanya, a Chinese city on the southern end of China’s Hainan Island, over concerns about the coronavirus outbreak which appeared in the country in December.
There are currently two evacuation flights scheduled: on Jan. 30 and Feb. 1.
Ukrainian low-cost airline SkyUp and its partner tour company, JoinUp!, will take similar precautions. They recently announced that they will return all their tourists from Hainan with flights on Jan. 29 and Feb. 1.
On the same post, SkyUp also stated that it will be cancelling flights to China between Feb. 3rd and March 28. Similarly, UIA posted on its website that the company agreed to “suspend flights in this direction” until Feb. 24.
Similar precautions have also been taken in the United States, where 201 passengers were evacuated on Jan. 28 from Wuhan, a Chinese city in the province of Hubei where the first coronavirus infections were found in late December.
The U.S airplane will land in California and all passengers will be screened for the infection.
The recent outbreak of the virus has now reportedly caused 132 deaths, infected 6,078 people and resulted in the effective lockdown of 50 million people in cities across China.
While all deaths have occurred in China, there has been a growing number of infections internationally as well.
The Ministry of Health of Ukraine announced on Jan. 29th that there are four suspected cases of coronavirus in Ukraine, but they have not been confirmed.
“As of today, there are no grounds for concern in Ukraine,” Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said on Jan. 24th during a briefing after a Cabinet of Ministers meeting, the Ukrinform news agency reported.
On Jan. 28, the health ministry posted a list of recommendations to the Ukrainian public, including to “refrain from travelling to China.”
That same day, the ministry reassured the public that “specialists of the sanitary-quarantine unit are prepared and equipped with infrared thermometers.”
“Travelers with symptoms of the disease will be referred for further medical examination. In addition, all travelers are provided with up-to-date information on disease prevention,” it wrote on Facebook.
