REST OF WORLD OVERTAKES CHINA IN NEW VIRUS CASES
ROME/WASHINGTON/NEWDELHI: The World Health Organization on Wednesday said that for the first time the number of new coronavirus cases reported daily outside mainland China exceeded those within the country, marking a shift in the outbreak that has killed more than 2,700 and infected over 80,000.
The agency had previously warned that the contagion, which is believed to have originated from a meat market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last December, would spread across the world while the outbreak in China appears to have peaked on February 2.
The UN health agency put the number of new cases in China on Tuesday at 411.
ROME/WASHINGTON/NEWDELHI: The World Health Organization on Wednesday said that for the first time the number of new coronavirus cases reported daily outside mainland China exceeded those within the country, marking a shift in the outbreak that has killed more than 2,700 and infected over 80,000.
The agency had previously warned that the contagion, which is believed to have originated from a meat market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last December, would spread across the world while the outbreak in China appears to have peaked on February 2. The UN health agency put the number of new cases in China on Tuesday at 411 (down from 508 a day before) while those registered outside the country stood at 427. China’s death toll rose by 52 to 2,715.
“Yesterday, the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told diplomats in Geneva. The number of recorded infections by the pathogen, which is officially called the SARSCov-2 and the disease it causes is Covid-19, rose to 80,988 across 33 countries. The contagion spread beyond the European hotspot of Italy, while Brazil confirmed Latin America’s first infection.
Greece too confirmed its first case, a woman who had recently travelled to northern Italy. Croatia, Austria and Algeria reported cases linked to Italy – the hardesthit European country -- while a hotel in Spain remained under lockdown after an infected Italian tourist was hospitalised with the virus. Italy has confirmed 374 cases of the disease and 12 deaths, and says the virus has spread to some southern regions as well.
On Wednesday, a 60-year-old man became the second French victim of the virus in the country, the health ministry announced. France reported four new cases in the past 24 hours, including two returning from Italy, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 17.