The restrictions on public transportation will apply to tens of millions of people in a week when hundreds of millions of people travel around and out of the country for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.

Wuhan, the center of a new strain of virus in China, has temporarily shut down public transport on Thursday morning in order to contain the outbreak.

It was also reported that all flights and trains departing from Wuhan would be temporarily canceled to halt spread of the new virus.

On the other hand, Singapore confirmed its first case of the Wuhan virus, the country's health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

"The Ministry of Health (MOH) has on 23 January 2020 confirmed one imported case of novel coronavirus infection in Singapore. The case is a 66 year-old male Chinese national from Wuhan who arrived in Singapore with his family on 20 January 2020. He is currently warded in an isolation room at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and his condition is stable " the statement said.

The infectious respiratory illness, which is believed to spread through human-to-human contact, has been reported in USA, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

The outbreak has led to at least 17 deaths so far.

World Health Organization's (WHO) emergency committee has announced it will not yet declare a global emergency over the new virus.

"There was an excellent discussion during the committee today, but it was also clear that to proceed, we need more information. For that reason, I have decided to ask the Emergency Committee to meet again tomorrow to continue their discussion, and the Chair, Dr Houssin, has agreed with that request. The decision about whether or not to declare a public health emergency of international concern is one I take extremely seriously, and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence," said Director general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus after a day of discussions in Geneva on Wednesday.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are known to cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases, such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

ILKHA