AKIPRESS.COM - Kazakhstan will require medical certificates from Chinese citizens seeking visas and has stopped issuing electronic visas to them on arrival as a protective measure against the spread of a new coronavirus, Reuters reported with reference to Deputy Foreign Minister Shukhrat Nuryshev.

Nuryshev told reporters the government has asked Beijing to allow 98 Kazakh students to leave the city of Wuhan, which has been locked down and is considered to be the epicentre of the outbreak.

There are no plans to completely close the border with neighbouring China, he said, as that would stop Kazakh citizens from returning home. Overall, 1,300 Kazakhs remain in China, Nuryshev said, half of them tourists visiting resorts in Hainan.

Out of those who have already returned from China, four people have been hospitalised with suspected respiratory infections and are being tested, healthcare minister Yelzhan Birtanov told the same briefing.