Accra, Jan. 21, (UPI/GNA) - Chinese health officials said on Tuesday that a fourth person has died from a recently identified coronavirus as the World Health Organization (WHO) calls for an emergency meeting over fears of it becoming an international concern.
Health officials in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, said in a statement the death toll rose to four from the virus after an 89-year-old man named Chen died late Sunday, a day after being admitted to the hospital with severe breathing difficulties.
WHO said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for an emergency committee to convene Wednesday to determine if the outbreak should be declared "a public health emergency of international concern."
Health officials in Wuhan first confirmed it was treating patients suffering from pneumonia caused by an unknown virus on Dec. 31. The disease was soon identified as a coronavirus, similar to the one behind severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS, which killed hundreds of people in China in the early 2000s, and that it is believed to have originated from a now-closed Wuhan seafood market.
The new coronavirus has since spread throughout China with confirmed cases separated by nearly 1,500 miles in Beijing and Shenzhen. Confirmed cases have also turned up to hospitals in South Korea, Japan and Thailand with more than 100 suspected cases reported in Hong Kong.
In Australia, one man suffering from symptoms who recently visited Wuhan is under quarantine at his Brisbane residence as health authorities run tests to confirm if he is carrying the virus, Australia's ABC reported.
By Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases in Wuhan was 198 with 224 cases of pneumonia caused by the disease reported nationwide. At least nine patients were described as critically ill.
Fears over the disease's spread have been stoked following WHO's revelation that human-to-human transmission is possible after health officials initially said it was believed to be transferable only by animals.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, said Monday night on state-run television that the disease has been found in patients who lived hundreds of miles from Wuhan.
"Now we can say it is certain that it is a human-to-human transmission phenomenon," he said.
The way to battle the disease is to bar those with symptoms from leaving Wuhan, a city of some 11 million people and home to an international airport, he said.
"At present, there is no special cure for this new coronavirus and [we are] conducting some tests with animals," he said. "We expect the number of infected cases will increase over the Lunar New Year travel period and we need to prevent the emergence of a super-spreader of the virus."
Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping has ordered increased efforts to stop the spread of the disease.
GNA
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