COLOMBO: At least 33 Sri Lankan students, who were evacuated on Saturday from the coronavirus-hit Wuhan, will remain under quarantine for two weeks, health officials said.
The death toll from coronavirus outbreak in China rose to 259 on Saturday with total confirmed cases surging to 11,791 amid stepped-up efforts by a number of countries to evacuate their nationals from Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus.
The students arrived on a special SriLankan Airlines flight which landed at the southern Mattala airport on Saturday morning and were taken to the central province military facility at Diyathalawa.
The flight departed for Wuhan on Friday to evacuate the students following discussions between the Sri Lankan and Chinese authorities.
Only one positive coronavirus case has been reported from the country so far.
The government had set up a special committee to prevent the spread of the virus given that a large Chinese community is based here working in Chinese construction sites in different parts of the country.
So far about 124 positive cases have been reported in a host of countries.
India, along with several other countries have stepped up evacuating their nationals stranded in Hubei as China continued to deal with spread of the deadly disease.
Hubei province and its capital Wuhan remained the ground zero of the virus with 45 deaths and 1,347 confirmed cases, according to the Chinese commission's report.