Amid novel Coronavirus (2019-nCOV) outbreak across the world, the US government on Friday warned Americans ‘do not travel to China.

A new State Department travel advisory raised the warning for China to the same level as Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The department further said, “Do not travel to China due to novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, China”, according to the notice that was posted on its website.

“We have full confidence and capability to win this fight against the epidemic,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.

International alarm over the new coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, in December, is driven by its rapid spread and the fact that infectious disease experts cannot yet know how deadly or contagious it is.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said all air traffic between Italy and China would stop, a more drastic measure than most countries have undertaken after Italy announced its first confirmed cases in two Chinese tourists.

Earlier on Thursday, President Donald Trump created a coronavirus task force to lead his administration’s response to the deadly virus which has killed 170 people and infected 7,736 others in China, and spread to 20 countries, including India.

The task force is led by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and is coordinated through the National Security Council, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said.

As the spread of the virus intensified, many countries, including India, started preparation to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province.

In China, thousands of factory workers on Lunar New Year holidays may struggle to get back to work next week due to travel restrictions. Major firms such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Sweden’s IKEA have closed China operations.

Four Chinese provinces, including Shandong and Heilongjiang in the industrial rust-belt region, have asked companies not to start work before February 10.

China will release winter and spring vegetable reserves in major northern cities to ease supply shortages, Xinhua news agency reported.

New cases are being reported every day around the world, spurring cuts to travel, outbreaks of anti-China sentiment in some places and a surge in demand for protective face masks.

The Coronavirus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.

The Coronavirus is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from the common cold to acute respiratory syndromes, but the virus in China is a novel strain and not seen before.

(With inputs from agency)