Chinese worker quarantined as a precaution for coronavirus
27-01-2020 09:18 AM
Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Ministry of Health has placed under quarantine a Chinese worker, who arrived in Jordan from the Coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan five days ago, as a precaution for the deadly virus.
Assistant Secretary-General for Primary Health Care at the ministry, Adnan Ishaq, said the Kingdom is free of the disease, and that the quarantine was ordered although there were no indications the worker was infected with the virus.
Ishaq told the Jordan News Agency (Petra) that the Ministry had sent a team to a project in the southern Attarat region to conduct the necessary checks on Chinese workers there to ensure their safety.
He also said that three Jordanian students who returned from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, were put under quarantine at the Al-Bashir Hospital as a precaution, calling on the public to shun rumors and rely on official sources for updates on the disease.
Al-Bashir Hospital Director, Mahmoud Zreikat, announced that the Epidemiology Hospital at the government health facility was equipped with 100 beds, which can be doubled to deal with suspected infections.
He said that the Chinese man, who works for a Chinese company in the shale mine in Karak, was admitted to the hospital's isolation department yesterday, and that he will remain under observation for 14 days.
Zreikat explained that the virus incubation period is between two to fourteen days to determine if the patient is truly infected with the virus.
Spokesperson for the Al-Attarat Project for Oil Shale Production near Karak, Khaled Batarseh, said between 1500-1600 Chinese nationals had worked in the project over the past two years, adding that the one quarantined came from Wuhan five days ago.