A man died of the coronavirus in the Philippines in the first reported death outside China as the number of people infected worldwide surpassed 14,000.
The 44-year-old man, from Wuhan, China, the center of the outbreak, died in hospital on Saturday after developing "severe pneumonia," the Philippine Department of Health said in a news release.
Health officials said the man was admitted to the hospital on January 25 after developing a fever, a cough and a sore throat. He was "stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise," officials said.
He had arrived in the country on January 21 from Wuhan through Hong Kong with a 38-year-old woman who was the first person to test positive for the novel coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, in the Philippines. She remains in isolation in a hospital in Manila.
"This is the first known death of someone with 2019-nCoV outside of China," the World Health Organization (WHO) Philippines said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time."
Shortly before the announcement, the Philippines government announced it was temporarily banning travelers from China, Macao, and Hong Kong.
Philippines Health Secretary Dr. Francisco T. Duque III told the public that measures were being taken to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the country and that there was "no evidence of local transmission."
He said, "I would like to emphasize that this is an imported case with no evidence of local transmission. We are currently working with the Chinese Embassy to ensure the dignified management of the remains according to national and international standards to contain the disease."
Aside from the two confirmed cases, health officials said as of Saturday the county had a total of 36 patients under investigation with 23 hospitalized and held in quarantine.
"The new developments warrant a more diligent approach in containing the threats of the 2019-nCoV. The Department of Health is continuously improving and scaling up its public health measures and reminds the public to remain calm and vigilant," Duque added.
The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of the virus around world as of January 30.
The latest figures from China's National Health Commission showed 14,380 people are now infected with the virus across mainland China. As of Sunday morning the death toll had climbed to 304 and officials reported a massive spike in new cases, with more than 2,000 reported in the county on Saturday.
Outside China, cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in 23 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Italy and Germany. Of the eight confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV in the U.S., all of the patients had traveled to China recently, except for a man in Chicago who contracted the virus from his wife after she visited China.
The virus' rapid spread around the globe in two months prompted the WHO to declare the outbreak a global emergency on Thursday.
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