Hong Kong's government is on high alert to deal with a new flu-like coronavirus that has killed nine people in mainland
China, the city's commerce secretary, Edward Yau, said on Wednesday.
The outbreak has rattled financial markets as investors recall the huge impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China.
Yau is part of a delegation on a mission to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos to convince global business and political leaders that the Asian financial hub is back on track after more than seven months of
protests, even as it faces a potentially more damaging crisis.