Giuseppe Conte announces two cases of new virus in Italy

Italy banned all flights coming from and going to China on Thursday, following two positive test results of the new strain of the coronavirus from Chinese tourists visiting Rome.

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said: "So we now have in Italy as well, as in other European countries, two confirmed cases of two Chinese tourists who came in our country a few days ago in January, and I repeat these are two confirmed cases of coronavirus."

He added: "At this stage as you know we were already on alert and monitoring this critical situation and we were not unprepared."

The announcement came as Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza issued a ruling barring air traffic to and from China.

"From what we know we are the first country to adopt such a precautionary measure," said Conte during a late press conference in Rome.

However, Conte said the measure was "no reason to create panic and social alarm".

The two Chinese nationals are hospitalized in isolation in the Spallanzani hospital in Rome, the National Institute for Infective Diseases.

"The two patients were hospitalized immediately, isolated, they are in good conditions and the immediacy of the intervention makes us think that there are no more people exposed, because as you know normally the infection is transmitted after the symptoms appear, so as soon as the symptoms appeared the patients were isolated," said Giuseppe Ippolito, Director of the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases.

Italy is scheduled to send an aircraft to pick up Italians from the central Chinese province of Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak.