THE outbreak of the deadly coronavirus has prompted the world title fight between Jose Ramirez and Viktor Postol in China to be cancelled.
American champion Ramirez, 27, was set to defend his super-lightweight belts in Hainan on February 1.
The Deadly coronavirus outbreak has forced the Ramirez vs Postol world title fight to be cancelled
But now his fight with the Ukrainian mandatory challenger, 36, has been postponed after bosses opted to rearrange the event.
A statement from Top Rank read: “Jose Ramirez’s world title defence against Viktor Postol – originally scheduled to be live on ESPN from Mission Hills Haikou in Hainan, China on Saturday, Feb 1 – has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak in China.
“The Ramirez-Postol bout will be contested at a date and venue to be determined.”
Top Rank chief Bob Arum went on to say the safety of the fighters was his No1 priority.
Arum claimed: “The health and safety of our fighters and everyone working on the event is the most important thing.
“We hope the situation is brought under control soon. We look forward to staging events at Mission Hills Haikou in the very near future.”
So far at least 26 people have died due to the coronavirus, with more than 830 people in China thought to have been infected.
But the virus – thought to have originated from an exotic meat market in Wuhan – has rapidly spread around the world with cases reported in much of south-east Asia and even the USA.
There have been 14 patients from the UK tested, with other reported cases in Russia, Australia and Mexico.
Chinese authorities have quarantined Wuhan and NINE other cities in the Hubei province – totalling 33 million people in a desperate bid to contain the virus.
There are now fears the deadly coronavirus may have “escaped” a Chinese lab, after reports in 2017 warned of the possibility.
Scientists outside China were concerned about pathogens escaping from the National Bio-safety Laboratory in Wuhan, Nature reported.
The Wuhan lab was the first in China certified to study what are called BSL-4 pathogens, which can cause diseases such as Ebola and is one of 54 around the world.
China to build new hospital ‘with 1000 beds in a week’ to cope with coronavirus patients as footage shows excavators at Wuhan construction site
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
