Minutes earlier, at a press conference, the Macau authorities had pointed to three the number of Portuguese passport holders, but a last-minute update increased that number to seven.
The executive is unaware of whether these seven people are Macao residents.
If they are residents of Macau, the Hong Kong authorities will communicate with the authorities of that region, otherwise they will “communicate with the consular services” of Portugal, said the head of Prevention and Control of Disease of Macau, Lam Chong, in a conference of press.
There are also 15 Macao residents on board the ship.
The Consulate General of Portugal estimates that there are 170,000 Portuguese passport holders among residents in Macau and Hong Kong.
Of these, only about six or seven thousand will be expatriates.
Some 3,600 people were held on a cruise ship in the port of Hong Kong to undergo medical examinations after three Chinese passengers, who had previously traveled on that ship, were confirmed to be carriers of the new coronavirus.
On Wednesday morning, a team of Hong Kong health officials embarked on World Dream to conduct medical inspections of 1,800 passengers and 1,800 crew members shortly after the ship docked at Kai Tak terminal in Kowloon, which arrived after being rejected by authorities from Taiwan.
The Macau authorities also said that five residents of the territory who are on board a Japanese cruise, quarantined off Yokohoma, of which three traveled with the Portuguese passport, but are residents of Macau.
On that Japanese ship, 20 people are infected with the new coronavirus.
The ship, which on Wednesday left the coast for cleaning, will again be anchored in the port of Yokohoma, south of Tokyo, for supplies, while those infected will be taken to medical centers in the region.
China today raised to 563 dead and more than 28,000 infected the balance of the pneumonia outbreak caused by a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) detected last December in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province, placed under quarantine.
In the last 24 hours, there were 73 deaths and 3,694 new cases.
The first person to die from the new coronavirus outside of China was a Chinese citizen in the Philippines.
In addition to mainland China and the Chinese regions of Macau and Hong Kong, there are other confirmed cases of infection in more than 20 countries, the latest new case identified in Belgium on Tuesday.
On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international public health emergency situation, which presupposes the adoption of prevention and coordination measures worldwide.
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