BEIJING, Jan 24, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll in China’s viral outbreak
has risen to 25, with the number of confirmed cases also leaping to 830, the
government said on Friday.
The National Health Commission said authorities were also examining 1,072
suspected cases of the virus that first emerged in central city of Wuhan.
The markedly higher numbers were released just hours after the World Health
Organization stopped short of declaring the situation to be a global health
emergency.
China has effectively quarantined nearly 20 million people across Wuhan and
some nearby cities in response to the virus, and announced measures to curb
its spread nationwide as hundreds of millions of people began travelling
across the country this week for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Streets and shopping centres in Wuhan, a major industrial and transport
hub, are now eerily quiet after authorities told residents not to leave the
city of 11 million, where most of the cases have been identified.
The National Health Commission said the death toll was revised upward
following eight new deaths on Thursday, and 259 new cases reported across the
country.
Out of the total 830 confirmed cases, 177 were in serious condition, it
added.
Thirty-four people have been “cured and discharged”.
The respiratory virus emerged from a seafood and animal market in Wuhan and
cases have been reported as far away as the United States.
The new virus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland
China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
But after two days of talks to determine the level of global concern, the
WHO stopped short of declaring a so-called “public health emergency of
international concern” — a declaration used for the gravest epidemics.