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| - Japan on Wednesday airlifted about 200 of its nationals from ground zero of China's virus epidemic that has killed more than 100 people, and the US readied a similar flight. More than 50 million people have been locked down in and around Wuhan, the central industrial city where the outbreak first began, in a bid by authorities to stop an infection that has since spread to more than 15 countries. Thousands of foreigners are among those effectively trapped in the area, and numerous countries are devising plans to get their nationals out. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the virus a "demon" during talks on Tuesday with the head of the World Health Organization in Beijing, and pledged a "timely" release of updates about the crisis. But the United States questioned Beijing's transparency and urged the country to show "more cooperation," amid mounting global fears about a novel coronavirus that has infected more than 4,500 people in China and dozens more elsewhere. Japan sent a first plane to collect its citizens from Wuhan. It departed early Wednesday and was to arrive at Tokyo's Haneda airport later in the morning with about 200 people, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported. Around 650 Japanese nationals in the Wuhan area have said they want to be repatriated. "We'll continue to take every possible measure to bring home all people hoping to come back to Japan," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told lawmakers on Tuesday, according to Jiji Press. Officials are aboard the plane to monitor passengers during the return flight, but there are no plans to isolate those arriving from Wuhan. An American charter flight is also due to leave the city on Wednesday bound for the Los Angeles area. The plane will carry staffers from the local US consulate as well as some American citizens, who will be asked to reimburse the cost of their flights. "These travelers will be carefully screened and monitored to protect their health, as well as the health and safety of their fellow Americans," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. The European Union will fly its citizens out aboard two French planes this week, and South Korea was due to do the same. Several other countries were assessing their options. The US and several other countries, most recently Australia, have urged their citizens to "reconsider" all travel to China. Canada said 126 of its citizens live in the Wuhan area and it is consulting with allies and considering its options for getting them home. Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country was waging a "serious struggle" against the "demon" epidemic during talks with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Beijing on Tuesday. China has extended its Lunar New Year holiday to keep people indoors as much as possible, and suspended a wide range of train services. Following the Xi-Tedros talks, the WHO said the two sides had agreed to send international experts to China "as soon as possible... to guide global response efforts." "Stopping the spread of this virus both in China and globally is WHO's highest priority," Tedros said. Until Tuesday, all reported cases in more than a dozen countries had involved people who had been in or around Wuhan, but Japan and Germany have reported the first human-to-human infections outside China. Germany now has four confirmed cases, all of them employees at a Bavarian firm recently visited by a Chinese colleague, health officials said. Some experts have praised Beijing for being more reactive and open about this virus compared to its handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2002-2003. But others say local cadres had earlier been more focused on projecting stability than responding to the outbreak when it began to spread earlier this month. Since then, the number of cases has soared -- doubling to more than 4,500 in the 24 hours to Tuesday. The United States said Tuesday it was working on a vaccine -- but that it would take months to develop. Scientists at Australia's Doherty Institute announced they had grown the virus from a patient sample, for the first time outside China. This will "provide expert international laboratories with crucial information to help combat the virus," they said. After global stocks sank Monday on fears over the spread of the virus, US and European markets rebounded Tuesday. burs-gle/lth/sst/it/dw
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