BEIJING, January 30. /TASS/. The number of people in China suffering from pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus has risen to 7,711, 170 of them died, China’s national health authority said on Thursday.

"As of 24:00 local time (19:00 Mosow time) on January 29, the National Health Commission registered 7,711 confirmed cases of the disease, of which 1,370 are considered to be serious. The death toll reached 170," the commission said in a statement.

On Wednesday alone, 1,737 new cases of the disease have been confirmed in China. 38 patinets died in the reported period, including 37 in the outbreak’s hotspot of Hubei and one in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

By Thursday, the number of suspected cases reached 12,867. At least 88,693 people had close contacts with those infected. 81,947 of them have been placed under medical supervision.

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, Chinese experts identified the infecting agent: coronavirus 2019-nCoV.

Apart from China, the infection was registered in Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Canada, Malaysia, Nepal, UAE, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Thailand, Finland, France, Germany, Sri Lanka and Japan. The WHO recognized the pneumonia outbreak in China as a national emergency but stopped short of declaring an international one.