The Chinese authorities confirmed Monday that an outbreak of the new Corona virus has spread to other cities in the country, including the capital Beijing and Shanghai, while a fourth case has been detected outside the borders of China.
President Xi Jinping said that containing the disease outbreak and saving people's lives is a top priority, with the number of cases increasing more than three times and the death of a third person due to the disease.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese are expected to travel both inside and outside the country during the lunar New Year holiday that begins this week, adding to the challenges of containing the spread of the virus.
Authorities in various parts of the world, including the United States and many Asian countries, have tightened the screening procedures for travelers from Wuhan, a city in central China where the first cases of the virus have been discovered.
State television quoted the Chinese authorities as confirming that there were a total of 217 cases of Corona virus in the country as of 6:00 pm local time (1000 GMT) Monday, including 198 in Wuhan.
The report added that five new cases were confirmed in Beijing and 14 in Guangdong. Another statement confirmed the emergence of a new case in Shanghai, raising the number of confirmed cases worldwide to 222.
"The life and health of people should be given the highest priority, and the spread of the disease must be firmly controlled," Chinese state television quoted President Xi as saying on Monday.
South Korea confirmed today, Monday, that its first case, a Chinese, came from Wuhan, to become the fourth injury outside China, after two cases appeared last week in Thailand and one in Japan. The three mingled with individuals from Wuhan or visited them recently.
The World Health Organization said on Monday that an "animal source" seemed likely to start the outbreak and that some "limited cases of infection between one person and another" had occurred in cases of close mixing.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, the country's National Health Commission confirmed, Monday, that the new virus was transmitted from person to person and infected some medical workers.
The agency said that an expert with respiratory diseases and the head of the investigation team of the commission, who is looking into the cause of the outbreak, confirmed that two cases had been transmitted to the infection in Guangdong Province through people with the disease.