Singapore reports 2 more cases of coronavirus

Two more cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Singapore on Tuesday, bringing the total number of people infected with the deadly virus to 47 in the island nation.

It is by far the highest number of cases reported in any country other than China.

Among the two cases is a Bangladeshi man who had worked at Selator Aerospace Heights, the same location as another Bangladeshi who was found to have the virus last Saturday, Straits Times reported citing the administration.

The other is a 35-year-old Singapore woman. None of them ever visited China.

Seven of the 38 patients still in hospital remain in a critical condition and are in the intensive care unit.

Meanwhile, two patients have been discharged from the hospital. With this, the total number of people recovered reaches nine.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said it has identified 1,124 close contacts of those infected with the virus by noon on Tuesday. Out of this, 1,021 are still in Singapore and 989 have been contacted and are being quarantined or isolated. Efforts are ongoing to contact the remaining 32 close contacts.

Singapore confirmed its first case of coronavirus on January 23. The disease was first detected in China's Wuhan city and since then has spread to most parts of the world.

Meanwhile, death toll from the coronavirus epidemic in China jumped to more than 1,100 on Tuesday, way more than the global total of SARS at 774 deaths in 2002- 03.

Singapore on Friday raised the risk assessment level on the novel coronavirus outbreak from Yellow to Orange as three more cases, with no confirmed travel history to China or links to the past cases, surfaced.

Singapore executive director of the National Centre of Infectious Diseases (NCID) Leo Yee Sin, in an interview to Channel News Asia, said that symptoms of coronavirus are so mild in the first week like those in all respiratory virus and this is the reason why it is difficult to detect the disease in the beginning.

At least eight of those infected visited the doctor twice or thrice before testing positive.