Public advised against non-essential travel to China

The Department of Foreign Affairs is advising against non-essential travel to China because of the coronavirus.

132 people have died from the illness and almost 6,000 people are infected.

Irish people who are already in China are being advised to download the Travelwise app to get any alerts about the virus.

The Dublin Airport Authority says its in constant contact with health officials about flying, amid concerns over the coronavirus.

British Airways has suspended all direct flights to and from mainland China until Friday, as concerns grow over the outbreak which has killed 132 people.

Ireland operates no flights into or out of China and the DAA says it takes their guidelines on the virus from the HSE and the Department of Health.

Cillian De Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory at UCD, says Ireland remains low risk.

"The risk at the moment is still quite low," he said.

"The concern in the last 24 hours or so is the number of cases in Germany and the fact that that seems to be related to asymptomatic transmission of the virus. That's probably the biggest concern because we see that with influenza every year, people who aren't yet sick can transmit the infection."