The first cases of the deadly coronavirus have been confirmed in Europe, as UK public health officials have been working to track down about 2,000 people who are believed to have recently arrived from Wuhan.
The virus has killed at least 41 people in China, state media said, with more than 1,287 cases confirmed.
France on Friday announced the first cases outside Asia and the United States of the deadly new virus from China, and the country's health minister said Europe should brace for other new cases from the spreading epidemic that she said must be fought like a wildfire.
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said the two confirmed cases, Europe's first, both involved people who had travelled to China, where hundreds of people have fallen ill and more than two dozen have died. The sickened patients in France were quickly taken to hospital, in isolation, one in Paris, the other in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.