The World Health Organisation has said there is no evidence of "reinfected" cases of coronavirus in China, after reports said earlier this week a young man in Wuhan died of coronavirus five days after he was discharged from a hospital.
"From the evidence we have, those cases were not reinfected," Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of WHO's emerging diseases unit, said. She also suggested that initial tests that showed negative results could have been wrong in the first place.
Total cases go past 100,000 worldwide
Even as the number of people infected with the virus worldwide crossed 100,000, WHO warned that coronavirus was expanding rapidly across the globe. It said on Friday that there were 2,746 new cases of COVID-19 in 47 countries and territories.
Earlier this week, reports from China said a Covid-19 patient who was officially declared healthy after treatment died of respiratory failure. The 36-year-old man died in Wuhan, the Chinese epicentre of the virus outbreak. He had been discharged from the hospital five days ago after tests proved he was free of coronavirus. The news was reported by Shanghai-based news portal The Paper, the South China Morning Post said. However, later reports said the local Chinese publication that carried this report took it down.
The death certificate of the man, identified as Li Liang, showed that he died of coronavirus. The certificate issued by the Wuhan health commission remarked that coronavirus was the cause of the death. It also added that the patient suffered from respiratory blockage. It was reported on Friday that the man's wife was seeking answers for his sudden and unexplained death.
The report also said that the hospital released an emergency communique saying that more discharged patients are being readmitted for treatment for coronavirus.
Virus shows no sign of slowing down
On Saturday, China reported 28 COVID-19 deaths and a rise in new infections originating from abroad. In South Korea, 174 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed, taking the total number of infected people to to 6,767. Singapore reported 13 more coronavirus cases, marking the highest single-day spike. The island nation's health minister warned that deaths from coronavirus looked inevitable at this point.
Panic buying in more US cities happened after the latest reports said 12 people died in the country. The cruise ship stranded off the coast of San Francisco tested 21 people positive for the new coronavirus. "Among those positive for coronavirus were 19 crew members and two passengers," United States Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday.
Italy enters worrisome phase
In the UK, the second death from the coronavirus was reported on Friday, while the total cases of infections reached 163. Italy reported 49 deaths caused by the outbreak, bringing the total number of dead to 197. Friday's toll was the largest daily increase in fatalities, the Civil Protection Agency said.
