A Tamaulipas man hospitalized for a possible case of the coronavirus has tested negative for the disease, said state Health Secretary Gloria Molina, but authorities in Jalisco are investigating three other suspected cases.

A 57-year-old professor at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, had traveled to China during the winter holidays and presented light flu symptoms upon his return to Mexico.

Molina said that screening of the man’s friends, family and others he had contact with upon is return has been lifted and that there is no need for a second test.

“It ends here,” she said.

In Jalisco, a 42-year-old man who traveled to Wuhan, China, and a woman and child with whom he had contact are now under observation. The man showed symptoms of the virus on January 13.

All three are from Tepatitlán.

Chinese authorities have raised the death toll from the coronavirus to 17 and confirmed 444 cases, mostly in Wuhan, where the outbreak is suspected to have begun and to which the Tamaulipas man traveled over the holidays.

Cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States, and authorities in the Philippines and Australia are investigating possible cases in those countries.

The coronavirus is a pathogen related to the common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that can lead to pneumonia. An outbreak of SARS in southern China sparked global fears in 2002 and 2003.

Source: El Financiero (sp)