"There still remained 56,873 confirmed cases, including 11,053 in serious condition and 8,969 suspected cases. So far, 513,183 people have been identified as having had close contact with infected patients. 169,039 are now under medical observation," it said.

Lashing out at the overreaction of other countries, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang said that China had taken the most rigorous and decisive measures to fight against the epidemic, with many measures going beyond international health regulations and WHO recommendations.

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei, China in mid-December 2019, when a group of people developed a pneumonia without clear causes, and existing treatments were found to be ineffective. Within a number of weeks, several thousand people in Hubei's provincial capital of Wuhan were infected, and the Chinese central government imposed strict containment measures, including a lockdown of Hubei itself.

Due to the effective lockdown of Wuhan and Hubei, and the continued growth of the outbreak in these locations, several countries planned to evacuate their citizens and diplomatic staff from the area. This was done primarily through chartered flights of the home nations, which were provided prior clearance by Chinese authorities. Japan, India, the United States, France, Australia, Sri Lanka, Germany and Thailand were among the first to evacuate their citizens from the country. Pakistan has said that it will not be evacuating any citizens from China.

WHO declared the new coronavirus outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30.

In accordance with the global emergency declared by WHO, countries should take the necessary measures to prevent the outbreak from spreading beyond its borders. The decision taken at WHO is binding for all countries.

ILKHA