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Taiwan on Thursday confirmed the second native infection of the novel coronavirus that caused pneumonia, raising the total confirmed cases on the island to nine.
The patient, a local woman who showed symptoms on Jan. 27 and went to hospital on Jan. 28, was believed to be infected by her husband, who had returned from central China's Wuhan, the center of the epidemic, several days ago, the island's epidemic monitoring agency said at a press conference.
The husband, who had minor flu symptoms such as cough and a running nose on Jan. 22, had been diagnosed as having normal flu and thus not been subject to further examination, the agency said.
Now since the husband has recovered, the authorities did not include him as a confirmed case, the agency added.
To cope with the surging demand of face masks, the island's authorities decided to take over the distribution of all face masks produced in Taiwan, which total around 4 million pieces daily.
From Friday, about 2.6 million face masks will be distributed to the public through retailers daily, with each client allowed to buy three masks at most, while 1.4 million will be allocated to hospitals and epidemic control agencies.
The policy is expected to last till Feb. 15.
