Japan quarantines 3,700 people on a cruise ship

Yokohama: Japan has quarantined a cruise ship carrying 3,711 people and was testing those on board for the new Coronavirus on Tuesday after a former passenger was diagnosed with the illness in Hong Kong.

"Eight people on the vessel, which arrived at Yokohama Bay on Monday, have symptoms such as fever," top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said. Television footage showed several quarantine officers boarding the Diamond Princess cruise ship at the port of Yokohama on Monday evening to check all 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew.

The move comes after an 80-year-old passenger who disembarked on January 25 in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus, which has killed 425 people in China.

"The man did not visit a medical centre inside the ship while he was sailing with us," cruise operator Carnival Japan said in a statement. "According to the hospital where he is staying, his condition is stable and infection was not found among his family members who sailed with him," the statement said.

The cruise ship had already been through a quarantine procedure on Saturday at a port in Naha in Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, and quarantine officials had issued certificates allowing passengers and crew to land, Suga said.

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