Merchants in South Korea who hoard face masks and other supplies used to fight the coronavirus outbreak can go to jail for up to two years, the government announced on Feb. 4.

A total of 16 cases have been reported in South Korea so far, as the virus has spread from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where more than 20,000 people have been infected and 426 died.

More than two dozen countries have reported people with infections.

Price increase

A "sharp increase in prices" due to "hoarding" has occurred in South Korea, the ministry of economy and finance said, which resulted in demand for face masks and hand sanitisers to surge.

The two items were added to a list of designated products, it said.

Sellers who hoard more than one-and-a-half times their average monthly sales volume of designated products will face a maximum sentence of two years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won (S$58,000).

South Korea has so far seen at least four cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

A hospitalised Chinese tour guide is believed to have caught the illness while working in Japan.

In Singapore:

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