Coronavirus: Passengers warned after Bali tourist diagnosed

Bali health officials are tracing the movements of a Chinese tourist who was diagnosed with the coronavirus.

Bali health officials are tracing the movements of a Chinese tourist who was diagnosed with the corona­virus on his return from the ­Indonesian island last week, as Chinese authorities urged all passengers on board the man’s flight home to self-quarantine.

The man, from China’s Anhui province, flew to Bali from Wuhan — the centre of the epidemic — on a Lion Air flight on January 22 and returned to Shanghai six days later with Garuda airlines. Garuda said on Thursday it would disinfect that GA 858 aircraft.

He was diagnosed with the new COVID-19 virus on February 5, the day flights between ­Indonesia and China were suspended, raising fears that he may have been infected with the ­pneumonia-like disease while in Bali.

Bali health officials were keen to play down that possibility, however, telling The Australian on Thursday “the incubation period is said to be three to seven days, with the longest being 14 days”.

“In Bali there are no positive cases at the moment,” Bali health agency chief Ketut Suarjaya said, though two Chinese tourists are being treated in an isolation ward at the island’s Sanglah Hospital after showing signs of the virus.

“We are still doing contact tracing­ to track the patient’s movements while he was in Bali.

“We are looking into the ­property he stayed in, the staff he interacted with, whether he was in contact with any tour guide and so on.

“At the same time, medical staff have also been asked to be more alert and increase vigilance to ­detect symptoms.”

Indonesia has yet to confirm a single case of coronavirus, though Harvard University ­researchers say it is statistically unlikely that the virus has not already spread to the sprawling archipelagic nation.