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Over 17,200 people infected with coronavirus in China

Death toll reaches 361

© EPA-EFE/STRINGER

BEIJING, February 3. /TASS/. The number of people infected with the novel coronavirus-induced pneumonia in China has increased to 17,205, with the death toll reaching 361, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China said in a statement on Monday.

"As of 12 o'clock midnight on Feb 2 (7:00 p.m. on Sunday Moscow time - TASS), the National Health Commission had received 17,205 reports of confirmed cases and 361 deaths in 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and 475 patients had been cured and discharged from hospital. There still remained 21,558 suspected cases and 2,296 patients in serious condition," the statement said.

On Sunday, 2,829 new cases of confirmed infections and 57 deaths were reported in the country, the Commission said.

"So far, 189,583 people have been identified as having had close contact with infected patients. 152,700 are now under medical observation," the statement said.

On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center in central China populated by 11 million people. On January 7, 2020, Chinese experts identified the infecting agent as coronavirus 2019-nCoV. This new strain of coronavirus has already been identified in another 23 countries, including Russia. The World Health Organization has recognized the pneumonia outbreak in China as an international emergency.

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