The coronavirus has killed 56 people in China, and infected more than 2,000 people globally.
That's according to the figures released on Sunday, with President Xi Jinping describing the situation as "grave".
Health officials in Beijing have sent out mobile text messages to all residents, urging them not to shake hands, in a bid to prevent a pandemic.
Meanwhile, US officials at the Wuhan consulate will be moved back home, with US citizens offered a limited number of seats on a January 28 flight to San Francisco.
The virus has spread to Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the US, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Australia, France and Canada.
Hijackers being seated next to some of the scores of passengers taken hostage after insurgents took control of a train in southwest Pakistan, has complicating rescue efforts, security sources said on Wednesday.
The captain of a ship, who has been arrested in connection with a crash into a US flagged tanker off the coast of England is a Russian national, the German company which owns the vessel said on Wednesday.
A Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed a 47-year-old woman and wounded at least nine other people, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on Wednesday.
Yemen's Houthis said on Tuesday they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump's increased tariffs on all US steel and aluminum imports took effect on Wednesday, stepping up a campaign to reorder global trade norms in favour of the US that drew swift retaliation from Europe.