Coronavirus infection toll outstrips SARS

The number of people infected by the coronavirus strain in China has now eclipsed the country’s confirmed cases of SARS.

Hundreds of construction workers new hospitals to tackle the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Picture: Getty Images

The number of people infected by the deadly coronavirus strain in China has now eclipsed the country’s confirmed cases of SARS 17 years ago, raising the stakes in the battle to contain a disease that has sparked mass evacuations of foreigners from the city at the centre of the outbreak.

China’s National Health Commission said on Wednesday at least 132 people had died from the pneumonia-like disease and 5974 had been infected, compared to a total of 5327 confirmed cases of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that killed 774 people in 2003.

A further 9000 people were suspected to be carrying the coronavirus strain which was first ­detected last month in the university city of Wuhan.

“The virus is a devil and we cannot let the devil hide,” President Xi Jinping said of the outbreak after meeting with World Health ­Organisation chief Tedros ­Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Beijing on Wednesday and agreeing to allow a team of WHO scientists in to China to help.

The US has also asked for permission to send a team from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, but on Wednesday was still waiting for a ­response.

The US and Japan were the first to airlift citizens out of Wuhan on Wednesday, raising pressure on other nations to do the same. British Airways responded to the crisis by suspending all flights to mainland China. Qantas said it was monitoring the situation.

Among those evacuated to Tokyo was Takeo Aoyama, who said he had been “feeling increasingly uneasy as the situation ­developed so rapidly” and was ­relieved to be home. “The restrictions on the flow of goods and transport were extremely strict.”

Australia, Britain, the EU and South Korea have all scheduled flights to evacuate hundreds of citizens this week.

Of the almost 90 coronavirus patients outside of China there are now confirmed cases of local transmission in Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Vietnam, heightening concerns over the global spread of the outbreak which had previously been confined to cases imported from Hubei province. There have been no reported deaths from coronavirus outside China.