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Coronavirus death toll leaps in China's Hubei province

13 February 2020 06:16 (UTC +04:00)

The Chinese province at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak reported a record rise in the death toll on Thursday, as global health experts warned the epidemic could get far worse before it is brought under control, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Health officials in Hubei province said 242 people had died from the flu-like virus on Wednesday, the fastest rise in the daily count since the pathogen was identified in December, and bringing the total number of deaths in the province to 1,310. The previous record rise in the toll was 103 on Feb. 10.

The grim new tally came a day after China had reported its lowest number of new coronavirus cases in two weeks, bolstering a forecast by Beijing’s senior medical adviser for the outbreak there to end by April.

But the 2,015 new confirmed cases reported in mainland China on Wednesday was dwarfed by the 14,840 new cases reported in Hubei alone on Thursday, when provincial officials said they had adopted a new methodology for counting infections.

It was not immediately clear how the new methodology affected the results, nor why the death toll rose so sharply.

Asian stock markets wobbled and the safe-havens of the Japanese yen, gold and bonds rose after the Hubei numbers were reported.