At least 40,000 people in China have now been infected by the virus, believed to have emerged late last year in Hubei province’s capital Wuhan. And although the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said there are tentative signs the epidemic is establishing in China, the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that the number of cases recorded overseas could be just “the tip of the iceberg”. In an attempt to contain the virus, cities in Hubei have been locked down and transport routes across the country cut to stop the movement of hundreds of millions of people who usually visit family during the annual Lunar New Year holiday.
