Italy struggles to contain outbreak as death toll rises to 6, stocks slide

MILAN • Two more people in Italy have died after becoming infected with the coronavirus, bringing the death toll to six, the European nation said yesterday as the government struggled to contain an outbreak of the illness and financial markets slid on fears over the economic impact.

More than 200 people in the country have come down with the virus since last Friday, the latest data showed, the vast majority of them in the wealthy northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.

Looking to slow the progress of the highly contagious disease, the authorities in the worst-hit areas have shut schools, universities, museums and cinemas, and banned public events.

Almost a dozen towns in Lombardy, south-east of Italy's financial capital Milan, with a combined population of nearly 50,000, have been placed under quarantine, with similar measures in place for a small town in neighbouring Veneto.

Italy's blue-chip index, the FTSE MIB, fell as much as 4.9 per cent, the biggest intra-day decline since June 2016, Bloomberg reported.

Reuters reported that shares of businesses most at risk from an expected spending slump such as electronic payments group Nexi fell by more than 6 per cent. Shares in Italy's third-largest bank Banco BPM, rooted in Lombardy, dropped nearly 7 per cent. Analysts have warned that the outbreak could push Italy's already-fragile economy back into recession.

The worst-hit region Lombardy reported 53 new cases overnight, bringing the total there to 165 in just four days. In Veneto, 22 people had the virus, while a handful were also recorded in the adjacent regions of Piedmont and Emilia Romagna.

The sixth fatality was a cancer patient in the northern town of Brescia, according to state broadcaster RAI. Italian media reported that the fifth fatality was Case 88 and came from Lombardy.

The four other people who have died of the illness were elderly and at least three of them had serious underlying health problems.

As Italy grappled to get a grip on containment, other countries were considering new measures to keep the virus from being imported over from the European nation.

Tunisia may suspend some flights to Italy to reduce its exposure to the coronavirus, Transport Minister Rene Trabelsi said on a local radio station yesterday.

On Sunday, Austria suspended train services over the Alps to Italy for about four hours before restarting them after two travellers tested negative for the virus on a train travelling from Venice in Italy to Munich in Germany.

Although the travellers were not found to be infected, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said a task force would meet the following day to discuss whether to introduce border controls.

In Germany, a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry said it was not issuing a travel warning for Italy, but that it had updated its advice for people planning to travel there.

A Health Ministry spokesman said the danger to the German population from the coronavirus remained low, but warned that the assessment could change at short notice.

In Mauritius, the authorities yesterday blocked some Italian visitors arriving in the Indian Ocean island on Italy's flagship carrier over concerns that they might be infected.

Some passengers and crew on the Alitalia plane that had landed in Mauritius later opted to return straight home after being told they would have to be quarantined.

Some 224 passengers and crew had been aboard the flight from Rome to the Indian Ocean island, but 40 people from the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto decided to head home because of the quarantine threat, Alitalia said.

The airline said the decisions by the Mauritian authorities had not been disclosed to the carrier before landing, and that it had alerted the authorities in order to clarify the reasons as to why its passengers' movements had been restricted.

A flight was being organised back to Italy "although nobody declared symptoms of illness", the Alitalia statement said.

The people on board the plane were allowed to disembark only more than an hour after landing and faced rigorous screening, Mauritian daily L'Express reported.

Over in England, four passengers tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said in a statement on Twitter.

"Four further patients in England have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 13," the statement said.

"The virus was passed on in the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the patients are being transferred from Arrowe Park to specialist NHS (National Health Service) infection centres."

REUTERS