MANILA - A child who arrived in Aklan with fever from Nanjing, China is under observation at a hospital in the province, a health officer said Thursday.

Aklan Provincial Health Officer Dr. Cornelio Cuachon said the 18-month-old Chinese boy was among passengers who arrived at the Kalibo International Airport from Nanjing at 11:40 p.m. Wednesday.

There are direct flights between Nanjing and Kalibo, the gateway to beach destination Boracay. The city is east of Wuhan, where an outbreak of the new coronavirus began.

"Tapos nakitaan nilang may lagnat, mataas po 'yung lagnat 40.5 degree Celcius kaya ni-refer sa provincial hospital ngayon," Cuachon said in an interview on DZMM on Thursday morning.

(Then we detected fever, it was high at 40.5 degrees Celsius that's why we referred to the provincial hospital.)

• Flight attendant in self-quarantine in Aklan after symptoms of coronavirus

The boy is confined and is on oral medication, he said.

Earlier, a Filipino flight attendant sought self-quarantine after experiencing symptoms of the new coronavirus after traveling from Wuhan.

Two other Chinese citizens were also placed under quarantine at the Kalibo airport for flu symptoms but were cleared after testing negative for the virus.

"Yung babae po na 3-years old, kahapon po pumunta sila ng provincial hospital dahil kumuha sila ng medical clearance tapos ngayon po pabalik na sila ng China," said Cuachon.

(The 3-year-old girl, yesterday they went to the provincial hospital for medical clearance and now they are on their way back to China.)

On Wednesday, airport personnel held a meeting amid heightened alert in ports across the country over the virus scare, said Cuachon.

The virus, which belongs to the same family of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses ranging from the common cold to the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), has killed at least 17 and infected nearly 600 people.

Carriers of the disease have been reported in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Macau and Hong Kong and in the United States, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.