Beijing: The death toll from coronavirus has reached 170 on Thursday, Sputnik reported citing China Central television.
Meanwhile, over 1700 cases of coronavirus have been registered in China.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it will hold its second emergency meeting on Thursday to assess whether the coronavirus outbreak constitutes an international health emergency.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Wednesday, “The continued increase in cases and evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China, of course, is deeply concerning.
Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak.”
During the previous meeting, on Thursday last week, the WHO had said that it was ‘too early’ to declare the outbreak of coronavirus in China as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
The virus originated in Wuhan city of China in December and has since then spread to various cities around the world.
China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year.
Health authorities around the world are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China.
Russia said on Thursday it was closing its border with China to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus and would stop issuing electronic visas to Chinese nationals.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told a government meeting that the order had been signed “to take measures to close the border (with China) in the Far East”. “We have to do everything to protect our people,” he said.
The Russian foreign ministry said that as of Thursday it would stop issuing Chinese citizens with electronic visas, which can be used to cross into parts of the Far East and western Russia. The foreign ministry also advised Russians to refrain from travelling to China and for those in China to get in touch with the Russian embassy.
Russia does not have any confirmed cases of the new virus but the Russian government has set up a task force to prevent its possible spread.
Meanwhile, the Jack Ma Foundation has announced it will donate 100 million yuan (14.4 million U.S. dollars) to support research and development of a novel coronavirus vaccine.
“We firmly know that while scientists are racing against the clock, it won’t be an easy task from the vaccine research to the final large-scale production and use,” said Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group and the Jack Ma Foundation.
Ma said the foundation will strive to provide more help for the development and accumulation of medical science in the fight against viruses.
Alibaba Group said it would provide public research institutions free access to all AI capabilities needed for the development of vaccines and new drugs for the novel coronavirus.
Meanwhile, China’s finance ministry said on Thursday that 27.3 billion yuan (about 3.94 billion U.S. dollars) had been allocated to support the battle across the country against the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). (Agencies)
