China coronavirus death toll passes 1,000

February 11, 2020 | 11:09

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The number of fatalities from China's new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 1,016 nationwide on Tuesday (Feb 11) after 108 new deaths, including 103 in the hard-hit Hubei province.

China coronavirus death toll passes 1,000 (Photo: AFP)

The other deaths were in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Anhui and Henan and the cities of Tianjin and Beijing, the National Health Commission said.

The commission said there were another 2,478 new confirmed cases on the mainland on Monday, down from 3,062 on the previous day and bringing the accumulated total to 42,638.

This includes the 2,097 new cases reported in Hubei province, where the outbreak emerged in December.

The new virus is believed to have emerged last year in a market that sells wild animals in Hubei's capital Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with medical workers and patients affected at a hospital in Beijing on Monday, where he called for "more decisive measures" to contain the outbreak, said state broadcaster CCTV.

An advance team for a World Health Organization-led international expert mission on the virus arrived in China late Monday, headed by Bruce Aylward. He oversaw the organization's 2014-2016 response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Ahead of the team's arrival, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned there had been some "concerning instances" of cases overseas in people with no travel history to China.

Britain on Monday recorded a doubling of cases to eight, and the government warned the outbreak of novel coronavirus was a "serious and imminent threat."

US President Donald Trump said he expected the outbreak would disappear in April due to hotter weather, a prognosis at odds with top US health officials.

Agencies/AFP

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