Beijing: The death toll in China's novel coronavirus outbreak went up to 564 as 73 people died on Wednesday, the highest one-day fatalities so far, and one died on Thursday while total confirmed cases rose sharply to 28,018, Chinese health officials said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, 73 people died due to the virus and the new confirmed cases of the epidemic went up by 3,694, the country's National Health Commission announced.
Overall 563 people have died in the country due to the virus so far and 28,018 confirmed cases have been reported from 31 provincial-level regions, the Commission said. Among the deceased, 70 were from Hubei Province and its provincial Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak.
Tianjin, Heilongjiang and Guizhou provinces registered one death each, the Commission said.
Another 5,328 new suspected cases were reported on Wednesday of which 2,987 are in Hubei. Also on Wednesday, 640 patients became seriously ill and 3,859 remained in severe condition, the commission said. As the virus is transmitted from human-to-human, over 2.82 lakh close contacts of the patients have been traced, with over 1.86 lakh others still under medical observation.
By the end of Wednesday, 21 confirmed cases had been reported from Hong Kong 10 in the Macao and 11 in Taiwan, the commission said.
The virus cases abroad climbed to 182 on Wednesday. The Philippines reported first death abroad while Hong Kong announced its first casualty on Sunday. Chinese officials hope the cases will come down in the coming days with more specialised hospitals being set up in Wuhan.
China's Ministry of Science and Technology said that a batch of Remdesivir, an antiviral drug, which will be put into clinical trials to test its efficiency on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), is expected to arrive in China soon.
Remdesivir has been used to treat Ebola infections abroad, a media report said.
So far there is no set treatment to cure the coronavirus cases.
China on Thursday finished building a second new hospital to isolate and treat patients of a virus that has killed more than 560 people and continues to spread, disrupting travel and people's lives and fueling economic fears.
A first group of patients was expected to start testing a new antiviral drug, as China also moved people with milder symptoms into makeshift hospitals at sports centers, exhibition halls and other public spaces.
The health care system in the central city of Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected in December, has been overwhelmed with the thousands of ill patients.
A new, 1,500-bed hospital specially built for virus patients opened days after a 1,000-bed hospital with prefabricated wards and isolation rooms began taking patients.
Other treatment centers had tight rows of simple cots lining cavernous rooms. And Wuhan had another 132 quarantine sites with more than 12,500 beds, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Hospital workers in Hong Kong demanding a shutdown of the border with the mainland were on strike for a fourth day. Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam announced a 14-day quarantine of all travelers entering Hong Kong from the mainland starting Saturday, but the government has refused to seal the border entirely.
A Hong Kong medical union warned that its 20,000 members could resign en masse if the city's Hospital Authority refuses to hold a dialogue with them over their demands. It estimated 7,000 were on strike and said those who were working were worried about their safety.
The outbreak of the new type of coronavirus has also ensnared two cruise ships, with the passengers and crew now quarantined on the docked vessels in Hong Kong and Japan.
Ten passengers confirmed to have the virus were escorted off the Diamond Princess at a port near Tokyo, after 10 others were taken off the previous day.
The group taken to hospitals Thursday are mostly passengers in their 60s and 70s, four of them Japanese, two Americans, two Canadians, one New Zealander and one Taiwanese. Tests are still pending on others on board who had symptoms or had contact with infected people.