Avoid handshaking, hugging to prevent coronavirus: IEDCR

The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has advised people to avoid close personal contacts such as touching, hugging and shaking hands to prevent the coronavirus spread in the country.

IEDCR Director of Professor Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora came up with the urge today during a regular press briefing at the institute on Monday.

We have to be prepared with all necessary measures to battle the virus, she confirmed.

She also said the temperature has no relation with the novel coronavirus because the virus has infected people living in countries with high temperatures also as it transmits person to person.

"Coronavirus cannot survive at temperatures of 70°C. But, no country has such high temperature. It cannot be expected that the spread of coronavirus will decrease during summer." She said further.

The coronavirus, believed to have originated late last year in a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife, has spread to Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai, as well as at least 60 countries across the globe.

Globally, at least 80,000 people have been diagnosed with the virus and the death toll reached to 2,835 till Sunday.