Feb 05 (NHK) - Japan's health ministry said on Tuesday that the new coronavirus has been detected in three people whose initial test results were negative.
One of the three is a Japanese woman who evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan on a government-chartered plane last Thursday. She had a cough and fever but tested negative for the virus.
She developed symptoms of pneumonia on Saturday and the virus was detected in a second test.
Ministry officials say she has been in hospital since her return from Wuhan.
The second infected person is a resident of Wuhan who arrived in Japan on January 21.
She was diagnosed with pneumonia last Friday and hospitalized in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo.
She tested negative on Saturday, but a second test detected the virus. She's still in hospital.
The third person is a resident of China's Hubei Province, whose capital is Wuhan.
He arrived in Japan on January 22 and later developed symptoms of pneumonia. The coronavirus was not detected when he took a test on January 26.
He returned to China last Thursday. Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases examined his samples and found that he had been infected.
The number of confirmed infection cases in Japan has risen to 23.
