The balance sheet of the new coronavirus epidemic 1,400 dead were approaching on Friday February 14th in China, and the first case of contamination in Africa was noted, in Egypt. The carrier, who is not Egyptian, was hospitalized in quarantine, the Egyptian health ministry said.
Nearly 64,000 cases of contamination have now been recorded in China, including at least 1,716 among doctors and nurses working in contact with the sick, according to the count of the National Health Commission, which acts as a ministry. Authorities have revealed that six healthcare workers have died, highlighting the risks they face in overcrowded hospitals.
The vast majority (1,102) of these hospital infections occurred in Wuhan (center), capital of Hubei Province and the cradle of the Covid-19 viral pneumonia epidemic. The announcement came a week after the death of a doctor who had tried to alert the authorities, but was reprimanded by the police, due to the virus. His death had provoked anger on social networks.
Due to an influx of patients into Hubei hospitals and a shortage of protective supplies (masks, full-body suits), some healthcare workers are at the mercy of contamination.
Contamination in around twenty states
The national health commission reported on Friday 121 new deaths in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macao) in the past twenty-four hours, bringing the total to 1,380 dead. China accounts for 99.9% of all coronavirus deaths worldwide. So far, only Japan and the Philippines have each reported a death on their territory.
Elsewhere in the world, the Covid-19 epidemic is keeping authorities on the alert, with several hundred confirmed cases of contamination in some 20 states.
People sick in the United States with flu symptoms but tested negative for flu will be tested for the new coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Friday.
The main source of infection outside China remains the cruise liner Diamond Princess, in isolation in Japan near Yokohama (east): 218 cases of contamination have been confirmed there, including 44 new cases announced on Thursday. Japanese authorities began Friday to evacuate from the boat some elderly and fragile passengers, whose tests for the new coronavirus were negative.
In addition, the hundreds of passengers on an American cruise ship, the Westerdam, were able to land on Friday in Cambodia: the boat had wandered at sea for more than ten days, five Asian ports preventing it from docking for fear of the coronavirus.
In France, 181 first returnees from Wuhan left Friday a holiday center near Marseille (south), where they had been confined for fourteen days.
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