BEIJING: The death toll from the novel
coronavirus outbreak surged past 1,000 in
China on Tuesday as the
World Health Organization warned that the epidemic poses a “very grave” global threat. The
WHO is holding a conference in Geneva on combatting the
virus as Beijing struggles to contain a disease that has now infected more than 42,000 and reached some 25 countries.
Another 108 deaths were reported on Tuesday — the first tripledigit daily rise since the virus emerged in late December.
“With 99% of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country, but one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The death toll has now reached 1,016, although the mortality rate remains relatively low at 2.4%. But the case of a British man who passed on the virus to at least 11 other people — without having been in China — has raised fears of a new phase of contagion abroad.
The 53-year-old — dubbed a “super-spreader” by some British media, said Tuesday he had fully recovered, but remained in isolation in a central London hospital.
Most cases overseas have involved people who had been in
Wuhan, the quarantined central Chinese city where the virus emerged late last year, or people infected by others who had been at the epicentre.
But the Briton caught the virus while attending a conference in Singapore and then passed it on to several compatriots while on holiday in the French Alps, before finally being diagnosed back in
Britain.