Philippines reports first coronavirus death outside China

People queue up to buy protective face masks at a store in Manila, Philippines, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020 - Reuters

BEIJING/MANILA (Reuters): The Philippines yesterdays reported the first overseas death from the growing epidemic of a coronavirus that originated in China, where new confirmed infections jumped by a daily record to top 14,000 cases.

The Philippines Department of Health said a 44-year-old man from Wuhan city in central Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, had died after developing severe pneumonia. It was the first death out of more than 130 cases reported in around two dozen other countries and regions outside of mainland China.

The man who died was a companion of a 38-year-old Chinese woman, also from Wuhan, who was the first and only other person to test positive for the virus in the Philippines. Both patients arrived in the Philippines via Hong Kong on 21 January.

The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China had reached 304 as of the end of Saturday, State broadcaster CCTV said yesterday, citing the country’s National Health Commission.

All the new deaths in China and most of the new infections of the flu-like coronavirus on Saturday were in Hubei.