Israel's Consul to Japan Revital Naim on Tuesday visited the two Japanese military hospitals where three Israelis are being treated for coronavirus, accompanied by Prof. Ran Nir-Paz, the head of the Infectious Diseases Department at Hadassah hospitals in Jerusalem.
The three Israelis contracted the virus during their two-week quarantine on the Diamond Princess cruise liner, where more than 450 people have now tested positive for infection.
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Prof. Ran Nir-Paz meets with Japanese medical staff treating Israeli coronavirus patients
(Photo: Foreign Ministry)
Naim and Nir-Paz talked by phone to the Israeli patients who are isolation and met with the medical staff taking care of them.
"We are seeing good treatment from the Japanese, and we will of course closely monitor the situation," Nir-Paz said. "It is clear that the Israelis are suffering light symptoms."
The three were among 15 Israelis on board the Diamond Princess when is was placed in quarantine on Feb. 5. On Tuesday, Japanese officials said another 88 people on the liner, which carries some 3,700 passengers and crew, had tested positive for the virus.
The quarantine of the British-flagged ship was expected to end on Wednesday morning Tokyo time, and Israel, like other countries, is making plans to repatriate its citizens on the liner who have been found to be clear of the virus.
Two Israelis were still waiting Tuesday for the results of their tests and Israel hopes that they will receive a negative diagnosis before they are due to board their flight home.
The Israeli Embassy in Japan is dealing with arrangements for the flights to Israel on behalf of the passengers' insurance companies.
Yonatan Levy, a relative of one of the Israeli passengers now infected told Ynet this week that she has been taken to a coastal hospital.
"They say that they are in good health, that the health services are not overwhelmed. She has no symptoms except perhaps light sniffles, although we have not really had chance to speak. Although she is an older woman, she is a very strong woman and I am certain she will come out of this," said Levy, whose mother, sister and other family members were on board the ship.
"As early as the second day of quarantine we told them that what they were doing was dangerous," he said. "We need to assume that the entire ship has been infected via the ventilation system. We have to evacuate all of them, like the Americans did: Three hundred and eighty people were all evacuated. Boom," he said.
"One has to assume that if they have been on the ship for 14 days on top of another 15 days of cruising, the chances are that everyone is infected. America did it for 400 passengers, we only have 15. "