BEIJING, February 18. /TASS/. The director of Wuchang Hospital in central China’s Wuhan, Liu Zhiming, died of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, the official state broadcaster, China Central Television, has reported.

Liu Zhiming is the first head of a hospital in China, who has died of this disease.

The news that Liu died broke in Chinese social networks on Monday, but later the post was deleted and a number of Chinese media outlets denied the report on his death. Early on Tuesday, his wife said he was still alive, but an hour later his death was confirmed.

Liu Zhiming was born in 1969 in the Hubei Province. In 1991, he graduated from Wuhan University’s medical school and specialized in diagnosing and treating head injuries, intracranial tumors and cerebrovascular problems.

On February 14, Liu Fan, a nurse at Wuchang Hospital, died of the novel coronavirus at the age of 59.

According to China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases among medical staff has exceeded 1,700 and was "on the rise."

The Chinese authorities registered an outbreak of the novel coronavirus (official name COVID-19) in Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center in central China populated by 12 million people, in late December 2019. Cases of the novel coronavirus were found in 25 other countries and territories, including Russia. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. According to the latest data, the death toll from coronavirus has exceeded 1,800 and more than 73,000 people have been infected. Nearly 13,000 people have recovered.