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China reports six novel coronavirus deaths, 67 imported cases in past day

The overall number of novel coronavirus cases in the country has topped 81,000

BEIJING, March 26. /TASS/. In the past 24 hours, six people died of the novel coronavirus in China, while the number of imported cases of the country increased by 67, the National Health Commission said on Thursday.

The overall number of imported cases now stands at 541, Chinese authorities said.

According to the state agency, 91% of all coronavirus patients have already recovered, including 401 discharged from hospitals in the past 24 hours. The overall number of novel coronavirus cases in the country has topped 81,000, with 3,287 deaths. The official mortality rate in China is 4%.

The majority of those infected arrived to China from abroad, with almost no domestic cases of infection registered in past days. In order to prevent the disease from re-emerging, the authorities place all those arriving from foreign states in a mandatory two-week quarantine.

The majority of patients, who are still being treated for the infection, remain in hospitals in Hubei, a central Chinese province where the disease broke out late last December. 150 patients undergo treatment in Beijing and 91 - in Guangdong.

According to latest data, over 14,700 people who had close contact with those infected are now under medical supervision. The virus is suspected in 159 persons, who are in quarantine awaiting diagnosis.

Some 1,200 patients have developed a severe form of the disease.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 150 countries.

On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak a global pandemic. As of now, over 450,000 people have been infected around the world and more than 20,000 have died.