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Russia imposes temporary ban on air travel of foreigners from China

The ban is not applicable to "citizens of states members of the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as air crews, members of official delegations and individuals who have a Russian residence permit"

MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Foreign citizens travelling from China by air will be prohibited from entering the Russian territory starting from Tuesday, February 4, according to a decree published by the Russian government on Monday night.

"The Russian transport ministry, jointly with the Federal Security Service, the Federal Customs Service and the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare [Rospotrebnadzor] should temporarily restrict the entry of foreign citizens from the territory of the Chinese People’s Republic by air, except for the air travel border crossing point in Moscow (Sheremetyevo)," the governmental decree reads

The ban is not applicable to "citizens of states members of the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as air crews, members of official delegations and individuals who have a Russian residence permit."

The Russian Foreign Ministry was tasked with notifying China and other countries whose interests could be affected about those measures, explaining that those steps were justified and temporary.

On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, a large economic and industrial metropolis in central China populated by 11 million people. On January 7, 2020, Chinese experts identified the infecting agent: coronavirus 2019-nCoV.

Cases of the new coronavirus have been confirmed in 23 other countries, including Russia, Australia, Vietnam, India, Canada, the United States and Thailand.

As of Monday, the total number of coronavirus cases in China exceeded 17,000, and the number of fatalities surpassed 350. One more fatality has been reported outside China - in the Philippines.