MOSCOW, February 13. /TASS/. /TASS/. A new method for diagnosing the coronavirus, in which ‘clinically diagnosed’ cases are included, is employed only in China’s Hubei province, Zheng Jin, a spokesperson for the Shanghai Health Commission said Thursday.
"The standards for diagnosing the coronavirus will remain the same in other provinces apart from Hubei in accordance with the publicized diagnostics program of the Chinese National Health Commission," financial news website Caijing reported.
Earlier, the Chinese authorities said that the sharp rise in the official number of coronavirus cases in Hubei (over 14,800 just in one day) on Thursday was attributed to the introduction of a broader definition to diagnose people, which includes ‘clinically diagnosed’ cases.
According to the updated reports, the number of people infected with the coronavirus in the central Chinese province of Hubei has surpassed 48,200 cases with 1,310 fatalities and 2,441 recoveries.
On December 31, 2019, Chinese health officials reported a cluster of cases of acute respiratory illness to the World Health Organization in Wuhan, an economic and industrial metropolis with a population of 11 million. The virus - now named COVID-19 (2019-nCoV), otherwise known as the novel coronavirus - was identified on January 7, 2020. Apart from China, over 24 other countries, including Russia, have reported confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest data confirmed by the Chinese authorities, the overall number of people who contracted the novel coronavirus in China has exceeded 60,000, more than 1,300 people have died and over 6,000 have recovered.
The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, describing it as an epidemic with multiple locations.