Airports, ports screen passengers for coronavirus

The county's airports and ports of entry remain on high alert. 

"Special measures have been introduced at our OR Tambo International Airport, where travellers on direct aircraft from China and have travelled to Wuhan in the past 14 days are required to complete a questionnaire for possible conduct tracing."

Zweli Mkhize says all airline passengers are being screened. He said a total of 55 travellers were found to have elevated temperature of the 5514 were from China, but no traveller found with symptoms consistent with the current novel coronavirus and none of them required isolation.

Mkhize and an expert team, put together to deal with the outbreak briefed the media in Joburg this morning, after the World Health Organisation declared the disease a public health emergency. 

He says they're confident in China's ability to control the spread of the virus. Mkhize's believes that South Africans quarantined with millions of others in Wuhan city and Hubei province are in safe hands.

"Consequently, we maintain that there is no evidence to support repatriation or emergency evacuations of our citizens at this stage there is no report of any South African citizen who has contracted the infection," said Mkhize.

The Health Department says two South Africans who've been placed under quarantine in China's port city of Tianjin, will have to remain under observation for two weeks. 

READ: Coronavirus: Day 9 in isolation for Durban woman in Wuhan

"We are aware of two South Africans who are currently under 14 days quarantine in Tianjin That moved from Wuhan to Tianjin. But that's as far as we understand is basically just to ensure that people are under observation for a period before they can proceed to other areas," said Mkhize. 

Zweli Mkhize says International Relations has set up a hotline for those concerned overseas. The Minister says they're busy drawing up a database to see how many South Africans are in China.

 "We also requested that all departments and provinces must provide us with a database of students and staff that are in China. Some of the provinces have already indicated that they were the number of students in these different parts of China." 

He says they don't want to put additional stress on South African hospitals - but provisions will have to be made in the event of a coronavirus outbreak. 

A number of designated facilities, including KZN's Grey's Hospital, have been earmarked as centres - should there be cases reported here. 

Mkhize says the centres have been chosen for their ability to isolate, manage, contain and conduct research on suspected or confirmed cases.

He says they don't want to be caught unprepared. 

"We've done this in the past. And we just want to say that that the capacity still exists in South Africa will be able to do it in various hospitals that will run out. We've also activated our existing hospitals. So they must keep building up their own capacity to be able to deal with those kinds of suspected cases when they arise," he added.