One infection in Kashgar, China has led to 130 other cases being found

A single asymptomatic case has led to the detection of more than 130 unknown cases and panic in a western city of China.

Authorities in the far western city of Kashgar in China are implementing a range of controls after a single asymptomatic case of COVID-19 was detected.

The single case was reported on Saturday and authorities were swift to order widespread testing and introduce travel restrictions in the city, according to The New York Times. News of the controls spread quickly on social media, as residents quickly began sharing images of long lines of traffic and grocery store shelves stripped bare.

Flights to and from the city were cancelled on Saturday but had recommenced by Sunday, according to the report.

The single coronavirus infection was attributed to a girl, 17, from a rural area outside of Kashgar, whose asymptomatic case was detected as part of regular testing, according to the health commission for Xinjiang.

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A single case of COVID-19 has uncovered 137 more infections.

#Xinjiang reported 137 new asymptotic #COVIDー19 patients after a mass testing in #Kashgar. The new cases are all linked to family members of the one asymptomatic case detected on Saturday. #China pic.twitter.com/VS4mdq4sxR

— 曹毅 CAO Yi (Abou Wassim) (@CAOYI170610) October 25, 2020

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All the girl’s close contacts were tested and isolated. By Sunday afternoon, 137 new cases had been detected in the city. All the cases were linked to a factory where the girl’s parents worked.

Xinjiang authorities have not yet made clear how widely they’ll test the city’s residents.

The Chinese government has previously implemented mass testing of millions of residents after outbreaks. In Beijing, in June, more than 2.95 million were tested in 10 days after an outbreak was linked to a wholesale food centre.

In Qingdao earlier this month, more than nine million people were tested over five days. After the testing, the government said it detected zero new cases.

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Around 81 per cent of Kashgar’s residents are Muslim Uighurs. Picture: Bloomberg

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But Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said testing on a large scale might not be as effective as a more concentrated approach.

“Focus on the source of the outbreak and radiate testing to a certain area around it,” he told China Newsweek. “When no cases can be detected, you stop. There is no need to blanket the city to do it.”

The city of Kashgar is predominantly populated by Muslim Uighurs, estimated to make up more than 81 per cent of the population.

The recent virus outbreak led to concerns it may spread through detention camps and prisons in the Xinjiang region.

The spread of COVID-19 in the detention camps, where one million Uighurs are held, has not been acknowledged by the Chinese government.

Since coronavirus emerged from Wuhan late in 2019, China has reported more than 91,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 Research Centre.