MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS, Artyom Kuznetsov/. The global track and field athletics governing body (World Athletics) is keeping a close eye on the expediency of holding the 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championships in China’s Nanjing next month and maintains a permanent contact with the World Health Organization (WHO) on this issue, the World Athletics press service announced to TASS on Wednesday.

The 18th edition of the World Athletics Indoor Championships was scheduled to be held in the Chinese city of Nanjing between March 13 and 15, 2020. Nanjing is located about 700 kilometers (over 400 miles) to the west of Wuhan, which is reported to be the epicenter of the novel coronavirus.

"World Athletics is monitoring this situation carefully and is in close contact with the World Health Organization," the press service said in a statement for TASS.

"Should any of the WHO advice affect plans for the World Indoor Championships Nanjing 2020, we will notify all our stakeholders promptly," the statement reads.

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 China populated by 11 million people. On January 7, 2020, Chinese experts identified the infecting agent as coronavirus 2019-nCoV.

The new strain of coronavirus has already been identified in Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Canada, Malaysia, Nepal, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United States, Thailand, France, Germany, Sri Lanka and Japan. The World Health Organization recognized the pneumonia outbreak in China as a national emergency but stopped short of declaring it an international one. WHO specialists were dispatched to China.

According to China’s authorities, the number of infection cases has exceeded the figure of 6,000, while the number of fatalities is over 130. The condition of about 1,240 patients is estimated as serious. More than 9,200 people are exhibiting symptoms of the infection, but their diagnosis has not been confirmed yet. Almost 60,000 more people have been quarantined.

The scale of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus spread has exceeded the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which lasted for half a year. At that time, 5,327 people were infected, and 349 cases were lethal.