By Analou De Vera, Reuters, and AFP The death toll from a new coronavirus in China rose sharply to 132 on Wednesday with nearly 1,500 new cases, heaping pressure on Beijing to control the disease as US officials said the White House was weighing whether to suspend flights to the country. (China Daily via REUTERS/MANILA BULLETIN) In the Philippines, health officials on Wednesday said a Chinese national who was being monitored for possible infection of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) died of pneumonia at the San Lazaro Hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila. In a press briefing in Quezon City, San Lazaro Hospital Director Dr. Edmundo Lopez said despite the death of the 29-year-old man from Yunnan, China, who was admitted to their medical facility last January 27, the patient will still be tested to find out is he was afflicted with the 2019-nCoV. “We will still be conducting a test. So far, all the tests show another disease process. Since he travelled from China and had shown signs of fever, we will still test him for 2019-nCoV just to make sure,” said Health Undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo. “The (Chinese) patient was seen with varying symptoms upon admission,” said Lopez. The hospital official said that the man was found positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). “He had cervical lesions, swollen lymph nodes, he also had lung findings. Basically, he’s thin, and he was tested for HIV – and the screening test is positive,” said Lopez. Domingo said laboratory materials needed for the testing of the 2019-nCoV had already arrived in the Philippines. “The re-agents and the primers that were ordered by the RITM (Research Institute for Tropical Medicine) had already arrived in the country and they are now setting up the laboratory for this,” said Domingo. “Once the laboratory is set up within 48 hours – we will be able to start running the test for the 2019 novel coronavirus in the Philippines. So subsequent tests will be done by the RITM,” he added. Domingo said they are hopeful that they can conduct the test by Friday or Saturday. White House monitoring The White House, meanwhile, is holding daily meetings on the outbreak and monitoring China-US flights as a likely source of infections, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters, though it had decided against suspending air traffic. A senior Trump administration official said the administration had not asked airlines to suspend flights, after CNBC reported that the White House had told airline executives it was considering such as drastic move. Fears of the spreading virus have already pushed airlines around the world to reduce flights to China and global companies to restrict employee travel to the country, while sectors from mining to luxury goods have been shaken by concerns for global growth in the event of a worst-case pandemic. China's National Health Commission on Wednesday said the total number of deaths from the flu-like virus rose by 26 on Tuesday to 132, almost all in Hubei province which is under virtual lockdown, while the number of confirmed cases rose by 1,459 to a total of 5,974. Several countries are trying to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, the city in Hubei at the center of the epidemic. PH ready for repatriation The Philippine government will make available special flights to repatriate Filipinos from Wuhan City and the rest of Hubei Province following the spread of 2019-novel coronavirus. In an advisory issued by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Tuesday night, Filipinos in the area who wish to be repatriated are instructed to get in touch with:

• The Philippine Consulate General in Shanghai

Suite 301 Metrobank Plaza 1160 West Yan’An Road, Changning District, Shanghai 200052 Tel. No.: (+86-21) 6281-8020 Fax No.: (+86-21) 6281-8023 Hotline No.: (+86) 1391 747-7112 Email: [email protected] / [email protected] Website: www.shanghaipcg.dfa.gov.ph According to the DFA, the repatriation process is subject to China’s rules on Disease Containment, including immigration clearance and quarantine process, among others. The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has formed a special team which will handle Filipinos who will be arriving from Hubei, China, Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said on Wednesday. Upon arrival in the Philippines, repatriates will be subject to 14 days of mandatory quarantine per guidelines of the Department of Health. About 50 Filipinos in Wuhan have already signified their intention to be repatriated back to the Philippines, the DFA said on Wednesday. READ MORE: PH to make available special flights to repatriate Filipinos from Wuhan City Foreigners airlifted from Wuhan Hundreds of Americans and Japanese escaped the quarantined Chinese city of Wuhan aboard charter flights on Wednesday. About 200 people were aboard the Japanese flight which landed in Tokyo on Wednesday morning. Medical professionals were on the plane to carry out checks but Japan's health ministry said there were no plans to quarantine the passengers. They would instead be asked to remain at home and avoid crowds at least until the results of the test were known. A US charter flight also left Wuhan on Wednesday with about 200 Americans on board, including employees from the local American consulate. The European Union will fly its citizens out aboard two French planes this week, and South Korea is due to do the same. Australia said it would evacuate citizens from Wuhan and quarantine them on an island normally used to detain asylum seekers. ‘Demon’ virus New cases were reported around the world, including Germany, where four people from the same company were infected after one of them contracted it from a colleague while visiting their workplace in China. The German cases raise concerns about the human-to-human spread of the virus which can be transmitted in droplets from coughs and sneezes and has an incubation period of up to 14 days. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday branded the virus a “demon”, as he held talks with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The WHO later said it would send urgently dispatch international experts to China “to guide global response efforts”. “Stopping the spread of this virus both in China and globally is WHO's highest priority,” Tedros said. Until Tuesday, all reported cases in more than a dozen countries had involved people who had been in or around Wuhan. But Japan and Germany then reported the first confirmed human-to-human transmission of the illness outside China. Vietnam is investigating another case. Germany now has four confirmed cases, all of them employees at a Bavarian firm recently visited by a Chinese colleague, health officials said. Scientists grow virus Known as "2019-nCoV," the newly identified coronavirus has created alarm because it is spreading quickly and there are still important unknowns surrounding it, such as its lethality and whether it is infectious before symptoms show. It emerged late last year in Wuhan, a major transportation hub and capital of central Hubei province with a population of 11 million people. China has since moved to lock down most of Hubei, with a population around the same as Italy. Health authorities believe the virus originated from an animal and have pointed to a seafood market in Wuhan where wildlife was traded illegally. A team of scientists in Australia said on Wednesday they had developed a lab-grown version of the coronavirus, the first to be recreated outside of China, in a breakthrough that could help combat the global spread of the disease. The researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne said they would share the sample, which was grown from an infected patient, with the World Health Organization and laboratories around the world. "Having the real virus means we now have the ability to actually validate and verify all test methods, and compare their sensitivities and specificities," the Doherty Institute's virus identification laboratory head, Julian Druce, said in a statement. The virus has spread to more than a dozen countries and cases such as those in Germany show it is spreading through human contact and not only through travelers from China. “The virus is a devil and we cannot let the devil hide,” state television quoted Xi saying during a meeting with Tedros on Tuesday. "China will strengthen international cooperation and welcomes the WHO participation in virus prevention... China is confident of winning the battle against the virus." From France to Japan, governments were organizing evacuations, while Hong Kong - scene of anti-China unrest for months – planned to suspend rail and ferry links with the mainland. United Airlines said it was suspending some flights between the United States and China for a week from Feb. 1 due to a "significant decline in demand." The outbreak has forced extensive travel curbs in China, with many local officials trying to identify people who are from or have visited Hubei province, and some communities trying to exclude all outsiders. Some apartment blocks have forbid delivery drivers from entering, forcing them to drop off their parcels outside building gates. The European Commission said it would help fund two aircraft to fly EU citizens home, with 250 French nationals leaving on the first flight. No scientific proof Meanwhile, Philippine health experts said that there is still no scientific evidence that can prove that the 2019-nCoV can be transmitted before its symptoms may appear. Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said there is no clear evidence to show that such may happen “up to this point,” citing the World Health Organization (WHO). “There has been some talk of possibly spreading the virus by an individual who has not manifested any signs or symptoms, but there has been no evidence to back it up,” said Duque. This was affirmed by WHO Country Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, saying that such reports have not yet been confirmed by the organization. Duque said that the incubation period can range from 10 to 14 days. (With reports from Roy C. Mabasa and Jeffrey G. Damicog) READ MORE: Duque clarifies info on 2019-nCoV transmission