BEIJING, February 14. /TASS/. Over 1,700 Chinese medical professionals have been infected with novel coronavirus, six of them have died, China National Health Commission Vice Minister Zeng Yixin informed during Friday’s press conference.

"As of 24:00 (19:00 Moscow time - TASS) on February 11, 1,716 cases of infection have been documented among health workers. Six of them tragically passed away," he said.

Zeng Yixin noted that the number of those infected among medical personnel is on the rise.

On December 31, 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. The source of the outbreak is the COVID-19 coronavirus. The disease spread to 24 more countries apart from China - Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, India, Italy, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak in China a global health emergency.

Currently, the total number of people infected with coronavirus exceeds 63,800 in China with 1,380 people reported to have died from the disease. Meanwhile, over 6,700 people are said to have recovered from it.