Two Indians test positive for Coronavirus on quarantined ship off Japan coast
New Delhi/IBNS: Two Indian crew members have tested positive with the deadly Novel Coronavirus on the cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama in Japan, the Indian Embassy in Japan confirmed on Wednesday.
On Feb 3, the ship was quarantined with almost 3,700 passengers and crew members aboard.
This happened after a passenger carrying the virus had deboarded the ship last month in Hong Kong, the embassy said in a statement.
The cruise ship named Diamond Princess is carrying 138 Indians onboard.
A total of 174 people on board have been infected with the virus, the embassy noted.
"Due to the suspicion of novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection, the ship has been quarantined by the Japanese authorities till February 19, 2020," the embassy said in a statement.
Earlier, an Indian sailor from West Bengal, who has been stuck in the cruise ship, requested Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi through an SOS video to rescue him and other Indian crew members from the ship.
In the SOS video shot inside quarantined passenger ship - Diamond Princess, crew-chef from northern West Bengal's North Dinajpur, Binay Kumar Sarkar, asked Modi to consider the matter and rescue all the Indian crew members from the ship as soon as possible, before anyone of them catches Novel Coronavirus.
Following the incident. the Indian Embassy in Tokyo had responded stating that it is constantly monitoring the situation.
Another Indian officer Sonali Thakur, who is also on board, had appealed to the government to take them "back to India and isolate them".
As of now, the coronavirus outbreak in China has claimed over 1,100 lives in the country. About 44,653 people are infected in China only.
Several countries have banned arrivals from China and major airlines have suspended their flights to the country.
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