Malaysian flight to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, deliver gloves

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Malaysia sent an AirAsia plane to China's Wuhan on Monday to bring back 141 people and also deliver 500,000 pairs of gloves to the country hit by the coronavirus epidemic, the National Disaster Management Agency said.

All the passengers, including 12 crew and 14 Malaysian government officials, will undergo medical screening once they are back and those without symptoms will be sent to a monitoring centre for 14 days. People with symptoms will be hospitalised immediately.

The number of people infected in Malaysia remains at eight, all of them visiting Chinese nationals, the government said on Monday.

Malaysia is the world's biggest producer of gloves and its companies such as Top Glove Corp have ramped up production to meet rising demand from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The industry has also vowed to donate gloves to China. (Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Alex Richardson)