“We can confirm that there is one guest passenger and 131 team members from India aboard Grand Princess,” Princess Cruises, owner of the cruise-liner, said. The ship was carrying 2,421 passengers and 1,113 crew members; and 21 of them have tested positive for Coronavirus.

NEW DELHI - More than 130 Indians are on a cruise ship that US authorities allowed to dock in California on Monday after keeping it away at sea for days off because of an outbreak of Coronavirus on board affecting both passengers and crew.

“We can confirm that there is one guest passenger and 131 team members from India aboard Grand Princess,” Princess Cruises, owner of the cruise-liner, said in a statement to Hindustan Times.

But the company declined to answer questions about their well-being, if any one of them had tested positive for Coronavirus, and, if yes, what was their condition, and where they were. 

“We are not able to provide any additional information,” it said.

The ship was carrying 2,421 passengers and 1,113 crew members; and 21 of them have tested positive for Coronavirus.

It was supposed to return to San Francisco after a round-trip to Hawaii on Thursday, but authorities kept it at sea, debating where to dock it given the virus outbreak on board.

There are a large number of foreign nationals on board. Canada and the United Kingdom are flying home their nationals among the passengers, according to US authorities and the rest will be quarantined 14 days in camps on US military bases in California and Georgia states.

There are now over 600 coronavirus cases in the US, thus far, according to the latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with 21 deaths but the infected and death toll is expected to rise as authorities fear thousands of cases even while taking precautions of cancelling many large gatherings.

CORONAVIRUS THREAT COULD BECOME PANDEMIC, SAYS WHO

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation said since the virus has a foothold in several nations, the threat has become very real.

GENEVA - The coronavirus is closer to causing a pandemic but outbreaks in countries can still be controlled through a combination of containment and mitigation measures, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.

“Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told a news conference. “But it would be the first pandemic that could be controlled. The bottom line is we are not at the mercy of the virus.”

Four countries account for 93% of the nearly 110,000 cases worldwide, Tedros said. “We are encouraged that Italy is taking aggressive measures to contain its epidemic and we hope that those measures prove effective in the coming days,” he added.