Qatar has closed borders to foreigners and suspended international flights to the Gulf country as the spread of the Coronavirus becomes alarming with 470 confirmed cases.
The move comes as health ministry Friday announced 10 new cases, bringing the infection toll from the fast-spreading disease at 470, Al Jazeera reports.
The new cases include a Qatari citizen who had returned from Switzerland. The rest are mostly migrant workers who were already under quarantine, the ministry reportedly said.
After hundreds of migrant workers tested positive, authorities put the largest labor camp, located in the industrial zone in capital Doha, on lockdown.
Many of the migrant workers are hired on construction sites of FIFA World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects. There are 32 camps and about 2 million migrant workers who hail mostly from Asian countries.
Authorities have suspended for two weeks from Wednesday evening all international flights bound for the Gulf country, the worst affected country in the Gulf region.
On Tuesday, the tiny gas-rich country ordered closure of all shops and bank branches, except for food stores and pharmacies. Eighty percent of government employees were also ordered to work from home, the Doha-based news network notes.
The coronavirus has infected 275,189 globally and killed 11,383, while the number of people who recovered amounts to 91,533.
