No cases of coronavirus detected in Kingdom, media minister says

AMMAN — Media Minister Amjad Adaileh on Tuesday affirmed that the Kingdom is free of any cases of the new coronavirus.

During a press briefing on Cabinet decisions, Adaileh said that the Ministry of Health has taken all necessary precautions to confront the virus, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The precautions include installing thermal testing devices at crossings, prohibiting entries to the Kingdom from some of the countries where the virus has spread, preparing an integrated hospital to isolate suspected cases and conducting necessary checks on them.

Adaileh called on the public not to circulate any information except from original sources, praising the role of the media, which are “the government’s partners” in clarifying information and facts.

He called for respecting the privacy of Jordan’s guests, including tourists and workers, saying that guests from countries where the virus has spread are not necessarily infected or vulnerable to infection.

"We affirm, as a country, our sympathy and stance alongside all the countries where the virus has spread," the minister added.

Also on Tuesday, Secretary General for Healthcare at the Ministry of Health Adnan Ishaq confirmed that a Chinese employee working in a Petra hotel is not infected with the new coronavirus, according to a Health Ministry statement. 

Commenting on claims circulated on some social media sites about the transfer of a Chinese woman working in Petra to Amman for examination, Ishaq said that the Chinese woman entered Jordan from an Arab country and not from any of the countries where the disease is widespread.

He added that, for preventive purposes, and since the woman had visited China during January and was displaying some common flu symptoms, she was checked to ensure that she was not infected with the virus.

He said that the results of laboratory tests conducted by the ministry on Monday and Tuesday confirmed that the woman was not infected with the coronavirus.

Ishaq stressed the importance of observing preventive measures and acquiring information only from official sources represented by the Ministry of Health.

On Tuesday, he added, the daughter of a Jordanian citizen who holds Iranian nationality was quarantined in Al Bashir Hospital for a period of 14 days to ensure that she is not infected with the virus.

Ishaq told Petra that the girl from Iran was treated as a Jordanian national, because her mother has Jordanian nationality, and therefore she was allowed to enter the Kingdom.

The National Anti-Pandemic Committee on Monday decided to prohibit entry for travellers from Italy unless they left Italy 14 days before entering the Kingdom, according to a statement from the committee. 

The committee also decided to quarantine citizens coming from Italy for a period of 14 days, as a precautionary measure. In the same context, Minister of Health Saad Jaber issued previous decisions to ban travellers from China, South Korea and Iran from entering the Kingdom unless it had been 14 days since they left these countries.