Australia has upgraded its travel advice for Italy as the country is gripped by a coronavirus outbreak.
On Monday, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced the government now advises Australians to exercise a high degree of caution across all of Italy, and to reconsider the need to travel to 10 virus-affected towns in the north.
Mr Hunt also said, "if you are returning from Italy or South Korea, and you work as a healthcare worker, or as a residential aged care worker, you should not attend your regular work for 14 days".
"That is an additional level of protection which has been advised by the chief health and medical officers and accepted by the Australian government."
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy told reporters on Monday that Australia can no longer keep new coronavirus cases out of the country.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy gives an update on the coronavirus. Source: AAP
"It is no longer possible to absolutely prevent new cases coming in, given the increasing changes in epidemiology around the country," Mr Murphy said.
He said the Iran outbreak was considered high risk, and the travel ban was considered an effective strategy to slow the spread of the disease.
But a different view has been taken on Italy and South Korea, where outbreaks are considered contained, confined and localised.
"In the case of Iran, it's such a high risk that a travel ban is worth doing because it will slow down the number of cases," Mr Murphy said.
"In Italy and South Korea, where they have large outbreaks but they are confined and [have] been localised, the risk, the proportionality of putting in a travel ban was not justified in terms of its benefits to the health protection of the Australian community."
There have been 29 cases of coronavirus in Australia and more than 88,000 coronavirus cases globally.
