Wuhan virus death toll hits 636

The official Chinese death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose on Friday to 636, with the government saying total infections had climbed past 30,000.

The toll was raised by 73 new deaths from the epidemic, the National Health Commission said in its daily update.

Another 3,143 new cases of infection were confirmed, bringing total infections in the country thus far to 31,161, it said.

The central province of Hubei where the virus originated continued to be hardest-hit, accounting for 69 of the new deaths reported in the 24 hours to Friday.

Of the reported infections, more than 4,800 of those people were in serious condition.

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Chinese authorities are still struggling to contain the outbreak despite ordering millions of people indoors in a growing number of cities, with overwhelmed hospitals struggling to treat the surging numbers of ill.

The contagion emerged in the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan in December, later spreading to the rest of China and more than two dozen other countries, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare a global emergency.

The number of confirmed infections in China could still grow significantly, with the health commission saying that more than 26,000 other people were ‘suspected’ of having contracted the virus.

The virus is believed have emerged from a market selling exotic animals in Wuhan before jumping to humans and spreading across China and abroad as millions travelled for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the endangered pangolin as a ‘potential intermediate host’ for the disease, as the genome sequences of viruses found on the scaly mammal are 99 per cent identical to those on coronavirus patients.

The virus has since spread across China, prompting the government to lock down cities of tens of millions of people, and panic has spiralled around the globe as more than 240 cases have emerged in two dozen countries.

A quarantined cruise ship in Japan now has 61 confirmed cases. Chinese president Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, whose countries have tussled over trade and human rights, spoke on the phone about the health emergency.

Xi urged ‘the US side to respond reasonably to the novel coronavirus outbreak’, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Trump expressed his ‘confidence’ in China’s ability to tackle the epidemic, the White House said.

Beijing has been angered by bans on arrivals from China instituted by the United States and other countries.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net