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Rome, Feb 3 (IANS/AKI) The 56 Italian citizens who arrived home on Monday aboard a flight from the Chinese city of Wuhan - epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak - are now in quarantine at the Cecchignola military zone in south Rome.
The Italians will be held at Cecchignola for two weeks and none has so far shown any coronavirus symptoms such as fever or a cough, AKI has learned.
The Italians arrived at Pratica di Mare military airport aboard a military plane and underwent initial screening for the coronavirus at the airport.
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio thanked the medics and military staff who accompanied the repatriated Italians.
"Thanks to the medical and military staff and the apparatus of the state that worked to bring our fellow Italians home from Wuhan," Di Maio tweeted.
The repatriation of the Italian citizens from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city was "a complex operation", the Foreign Ministry tweeted.
"A complex operation has brought home our compatriots who were stranded in Wuhan," read the tweet.
The head of the Foreign Ministry's crisis unit chief Stefano Verrecchia and other ministry officials were there to meet the returning Italians, it added.
A Foreign Ministry statement hailed repatriation as "a team effort by the Foreign, Defence and Health ministries".
The Italian government on Friday declared a six-month state of emergency and earmarked five million euros for the coronavirus crisis. which has now claimed more lives than the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic
There are more than 17,000 confirmed cases of the virus in China, which has killed some 361 people there since the outbreak began in mid-December.
Outside China, there are more than 150 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and one death (in the Philippines). Cases of the virus have been reported in 24 countries other than China.
There have been two confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Italy to date - a Chinese tourist couple currently receiving treatment at Rome's Spallanzani military hospital near the Colosseum.
--IANS/AKI
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