Published on : 02/09/2020 – 09:23Modified : 02/09/2020 – 09:22
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The new coronavirus has now claimed more lives worldwide than the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003, surpassing 800 victims on Saturday.
The coronavirus epidemic in mainland China has caused 89 additional deaths on Saturday February 8, health officials said, a toll now greater than that of the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic that had appeared in the country and s was spread around the world in 2002-2003.
The National Health Commission has counted 811 deaths and 37,198 cases of contamination in mainland China, more than the SARS epidemic which caused 774 deaths worldwide in 2002-2003.
In Hubei province alone, the epicenter of the epidemic that started in December, an additional 81 deaths were recorded on Saturday, pushing the total toll to 780, regional health officials said on their website on Sunday.
More than twenty countries are now affected by the epidemic including France, which has announced five new cases on its territory: four British adults and one child who lived in the same chalet in a ski resort in Haute-Savoie, but whose clinical condition shows “no sign of seriousness”.
A team of WHO experts soon on site
The Japanese health ministry said on Saturday that three additional cases of contamination have been confirmed among passengers on a cruise ship quarantined off Yokohama since the start of the week. This brings the number of infected people on the boat to 64.
The United States announced Friday the sending of medical aid to China, a few hours after a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping during which the Chinese president assured his American counterpart that Beijing was doing everything possible to overcome of the epidemic.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the departure for China, Monday or Tuesday, of a team of experts to investigate the coronavirus.
In total, some 332 cases of contamination were recorded outside of China, distributed in 27 countries and regions. So far, only two fatal cases of 2019-nCoV coronavirus have been reported outside of mainland China, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
While millions of Chinese are back in big cities after the Lunar New Year holidays, many companies will remain closed on Monday and executives will favor telework.
With AFP
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