135 passengers from Wuhan to return to China on Monday —CAB official

All 135 passengers onboard a flight that arrived in Kalibo from Wuhan, China on Thursday will return to their point of origin, an official from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said Friday.

According to Atty. Wyrlou Samodio, chief of the CAB's legal division, the tourists onboard the flight are scheduled to fly back to Wuhan on Monday.

"Since turista lang naman 'yun, so ibabalik po sila," he told GMA News Online.

Samodio said Phlippine carriers Royal Air Charter and Pan Pacific Airline will launch a total of  four flights to take tourists back to Wuhan.

These include the 135 tourists now set to board a Royal Air flight back to Wuhan on January 27.

The CAB official assured that none of the 135 passengers have been reported to manifest symptoms after being screening at the Kalibo International Airport.

This is after Philippine aviation suspended all direct flights coming from Wuhan, where an outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is known to have originated.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has deemed the situation as "an emergency in China," even as non-fatal cases have been found in at least seven other countries.

Beijing has confirmed 830 cases of patients infected with the virus, and the death toll has risen to 25 as of January 23. —JST, GMA News