Beijing (AFP)

China reported on Monday the third dead of a mysterious virus that appeared last month, as the epidemic spread to the north and south of the country, a few days before the big New Year crossfire Chinese.

According to the authorities, the epidemic has so far been confined to Wuhan (center), an agglomeration of some 11 million inhabitants where the virus, of the same family as SARS, appeared last month.

But for the first time, Chinese health officials on Monday reported new cases in other cities of the country: two in Beijing (north) and another in Shenzhen, the metropolis of the far south which faces Hong Kong. More than 200 people have now been infected across the country.

What these new cases have in common is that all the infected people had gone to Wuhan in recent weeks.

Patients hospitalized in the capital are in stable condition and are being treated for pneumonia, local health officials say.

However, the virus is causing growing concern after the death this weekend of a third person since the start of the epidemic and a significant increase in the number of new cases in Wuhan (nearly 140, the total now reaching 198).

Despite everything, the city's health authorities want to be reassuring: according to them, the risk of transmission of the virus between humans is considered "low", even if it is "not excluded".

The focus of the epidemic appears to be a wholesale market in seafood and fish in Wuhan, where several infected patients worked. It has since been closed and decontamination operations have taken place.

- Hidden magnitude -

The epidemic comes as the Chinese New Year festivities approach, the busiest time of the year in transportation, during which hundreds of millions of people travel by bus, train and plane to visit their families.

Despite the risk of spread, movement in China is not currently subject to any restrictions.

The offending strain is a new type of coronavirus, a family with a large number of viruses. They can cause mild illnesses in humans (like a cold) but also other more serious ones like SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

Highly contagious, this virus killed some 650 people in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.

Symptoms of SARS resemble those of pneumonia, with high fever and various respiratory problems.

During the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly criticized China for delaying raising the alarm and trying to conceal the extent of the disease.

The concern is now perceptible abroad, where prevention measures are multiplying.

Since Friday, the United States has been filtering flights from Wuhan to San Francisco Airport and to New York's JFK Airport - both of which receive direct flights from Wuhan - as well as to Los Angeles, where many connections are made.

Thailand, where two cases have been identified, has also tightened controls at its airports.

The Hong Kong authorities have strengthened their control measures at the borders of the autonomous territory, in particular with body temperature detectors.

This weekend, scientists from a research center at Imperial College in London, which advises institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO), questioned official figures estimating that the number of contaminations was probably over a thousand as of January 12.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers used the number of cases detected so far outside China (two in Thailand and one in Japan) to deduce the number of people likely infected in Wuhan, based on the data. international flights from Wuhan Airport.

© 2020 AFP