Bangladesh PM postpones visit to Japan over coronavirus outbreak

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has postponed her two-day official visit to Japan over the global outbreak of the deadly novel coronavirus, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said on Tuesday.

"The prime minister was scheduled to travel to Japan on March 30. But the visit has been postponed as the novel coronavirus cases have spread there too," Momen said in an interview.

Also read: Threat of coronavirus 'pandemic' has become very real: WHO

Hasina was scheduled to leave for Japan on March 30 on a two-day official visit. "We will visit Japan later and they (Japan) have agreed to the deferred plan," Momen added.

Earlier this week, Bangladesh postponed the March 17 grand inaugural ceremony of the birth centenary celebrations of its founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after three coronavirus cases were detected in the country.

Also read: Bangladesh confirms its first three cases of coronavirus

Two persons brought the disease from Italy, infecting the third one on their return home, officials said.

The infections, the first reported cases in the country, came four days after Dhaka restricted entry of the people from major coronavirus-prone countries without a virus-free medical certificate.

The virus that first originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year has claimed over 4,000 lives and infected more than 110,000 across 100 nations and territories.

The World Health Organisation last week raised the global virus risk to maximum level after the outbreak spread to sub-Saharan Africa and stock markets around the world plummeted.