Only Ukrainians with no symptoms will be evacuated from China – Health Ministry

Ukrainian citizens staying in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where quarantine was introduced due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, will return home on Thursday, February 20, Ukrainian Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko has said.

"The plane will fly out on Tuesday [February 18]. We expect it arrive in Ukraine on Thursday [February 20]," Liashko said at a briefing on Tuesday.

He added that the algorithm for receiving, escorting and accommodating the evacuees had been approved and funds had been allocated from the reserve fund for their 14-day quarantine.

Liashko said that only people without symptoms would be evacuated and they would be examined twice by Chinese and Ukrainian doctors just before they board the plane. It is planned to evacuate 49 Ukrainian citizens and about 25 foreign nationals from Wuhan.

"It is common practice that healthy people will be evacuated," Liashko said.

According to him, the space in the aircraft will be divided so as to exclude infection between passengers. If anyone has symptoms of illness or feels unwell, there is a separate observation area in the plane where the patient will stay before arrival, he said.

According to Liashko, the Ukrainian Health Ministry has chosen two medical institutions - one main institution and one reserve institution - where Ukrainians and foreign nationals evacuated from Wuhan and crew will stay for 14 days. At the same time, he said that the quarantine period could be changed if the latest scientific data show that the incubation period of the virus is less or more than 14 days.

He also stressed that the state has the right to impose temporary restrictions on people who came from the affected areas on the basis of the law of Ukraine on the protection of the population from infectious diseases and recalled that the government adopted a respective ordinance on February 3.

Ukrainian Health Minister Zoriana Skaletska said on February 11 that there are now about 80 Ukrainians in Hubei, of whom 50 have tentatively expressed their intention to be evacuated from China.

op