Photo/Illutration Visitors are handed cards to report any health problems at Narita Airport on Jan. 24 after arriving from Shenzhen, China. (Hikaru Uchida)

A pneumonia-like infection caused by a new coronavirus originating in China will be designated by the Japanese government as a disease so that patients in Japan can be forcibly hospitalized at taxpayer expense.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the government’s planned designation at a Lower House Budget Committee session on Jan. 27, citing the need to provide patients with appropriate medical care through hospitalization paid for by public funds.

The designation will be the first of an infectious disease since the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2014, which resulted in hundreds of deaths around the world.

Like other highly infectious diseases, the classification allows authorities to recommend to patients that they be hospitalized for up to one year. Patients will also be restricted from working.

If patients do not comply with the recommendation, authorities can order their hospitalization, which will be financed by public funds. Authorities are obliged to compile an accurate number of such patients.

The government also expects to designate the infection by the new coronavirus as a quarantinable infectious disease. Under the designation, people suspected of infection must undergo diagnosis and treatment while under quarantine and can be segregated from the rest of the population.

The spread of the disease is coinciding with the Lunar New Year holiday from Jan. 24 to Jan. 30, during which time a huge number of Chinese travel within and outside of China.

The number of Chinese visitors to Japan this year is expected to be lower than usual due to the transportation shutdown in Wuhan, epicenter of the virus, and other Chinese cities.

On Jan. 27, Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), Japan’s most influential business lobby, expressed concern over the impact on the Japanese economy from the sharp drop in Chinese visitors.

“It is unfortunate that the outbreak occurred at a time people were traveling,” he said.

While he called on the Chinese government to take appropriate measures to contain the spread of the disease, he also said the outbreak may affect Chinese President Xi Jinping’s scheduled visit to Japan in the spring as a state guest.

(This article was compiled from reports by Dai Nagata, Shuichi Doi and Hironori Kato.)