BEIJING (Reuters) – An American became the first confirmed non-Chinese victim of the new coronavirus on Saturday while a Japanese man also died with symptoms consistent with the disease, as the epidemic looked set to pass the death toll from the SARS pandemic.
The 60-year old U.S. citizen diagnosed with coronavirus died at Jinyintan Hospital in China’s Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, on Feb. 6, a U.S. embassy spokesman in Beijing said.
“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” the spokesman told Reuters. “Out of the respect for the family’s privacy, we have no further comment.”
A Japanese man in his sixties and hospitalized with pneumonia in Wuhan, in central Hubei province, also died after suffering symptoms consistent with the new coronavirus, Japan’s foreign ministry said.
But owing to difficulties in diagnosing the disease, the cause of death was given as viral pneumonia, the ministry said citing Chinese medical authorities.
As of noon on Thursday, 17 foreigners were being quarantined and treated for the disease in China, according to the latest government figures.
The death toll in mainland China rose by 86 to 722 on Saturday, according to authorities, and is poised to pass the 774 deaths recorded globally during the 2002-2003 pandemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that jumped from animals to humans in China.
During the SARS outbreak between November 2002 and July 2003, the number of reported cases was 8,098, suggesting a far lower transmission rate than the latest coronavirus, but a higher mortality rate.
Two deaths have been reported outside of mainland China – in Hong Kong and the Philippines – from more than 330 cases in 27 countries and regions. Both of those victims were Chinese nationals.
“It is hard to say how lethal this novel coronavirus infection is,” Professor Allen Cheng, an infectious diseases expert at Monash University in Melbourne, told Reute