Thousands of people are being held aboard an Italian cruise liner amid fears they may have been exposed to coronavirus after a passenger came down with flu-like symptoms.
A couple from the autonomous region of Macao, on the south coast of China, are currently being held in quarantine aboard the vessel, according to Ansa news agency.
The woman is reported to have mild flu-like symptoms while the man is symptomless, but has been isolated as part of precaution.
They have both undergone tests for the virus, which have been sent to a lab in Rome for analysis.
The Costa Smeralda ship, which docked in Civitavecchia port on Thursday morning, is carrying around 6,000 passengers and made prior stops in Marseilles, Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca.
One man who said he was aboard the cruise wrote on Twitter that he hadn’t yet been given official details of what was happening.
In another post, he uploaded a number of pictures that appeared to show passengers waiting in the corridors of
