Authorities in Beijing reported on Tuesday (February 25th) an increase in new cases of coronavirus infection in Hubei province, the cradle of the epidemic, but a further decline in the number of cases in the rest of mainland China .

This apparent slowdown in the epidemic outside of Hubei province comes as concerns grow in South Korea, where several hundred cases have been identified, and in Italy, where the death toll increased Monday with seven deaths.

The United States and South Korea plan to review the scale of their joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula due to the epidemic, the U.S. and South Korean armies announced on Monday as 13 South Korean soldiers been diagnosed with the virus.

The White House has reported that the Trump administration has sent Congress a $ 2.5 billion budget request to fight the coronavirus, stating that more than $ 1 billion will go to developing a vaccine.

U.S. health officials have recommended that U.S. nationals avoid non-essential travel to South Korea, which has become the most important source of contamination outside of mainland China.

Many countries around the world are stepping up their efforts to prevent a pandemic of this flu-like virus that appeared in the city of Wuhan in central China in December.

Nearly 900 people infected in South Korea

Sixty new cases of infection have been reported in South Korea, bringing the number of people infected with coronavirus in the country to 893, local health officials said on Tuesday. A ninth death has been reported.

Among the additional cases, 16 were listed in Daegu, a town in the south of the country with a church at the center of the epidemic, and 33 were listed in the neighboring province of North Gyeongsang, the Control Center said. for disease prevention (KCDC).

In Japan, the Minister of Health, answering a question during a press briefing, declared that it was too early to raise the hypothesis of the cancellation of the Olympic Games which are to start in Tokyo on July 24 .

Some 850 cases of contamination have been identified in Japan, most of them aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess, placed in quarantine in the port of Yokohama.

A fourth passenger on the ship, which originally transported some 3,700 passengers and crew, died after contracting the coronavirus, Japanese public television NHK reported on Tuesday.

Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman recorded their first cases of infection on Monday, all of which concern people who have arrived from Iran.

It is premature to speak of a pandemic, said the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday, stressing that the epidemic is not out of control worldwide and is not causing large-scale deaths. "Using the term pandemic doesn't match the facts," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference in Geneva.

More cases in France, Italy worried

In its daily update on Tuesday, the Chinese National Health Commission said 499 new cases have been confirmed in Hubei province, and 508 cases of contamination and 71 additional deaths have been reported in the country.

The balance sheet in mainland China since the beginning of the epidemic thus amounts to 77,658 cases of contamination and 2,663 deaths, according to figures from the Chinese health authorities.

According to the WHO, the epidemic in China peaked between January 23 and February 2 and has declined since. The containment measures taken by the Chinese authorities have probably prevented hundreds of thousands of cases, she said.

"They have come to a point where the number of people healed leaving the hospital every day is much greater than the number of new patients," said Bruce Aylward, head of the WHO delegation to China.

In France, no one is infected with the virus, said the Minister of Health on Monday, while the spread in Italy of viral pneumonia has rekindled concern in France.

"There is no circulation of the virus on the national territory," said Olivier Véran, adding that the last person infected with Covid-19 who was still hospitalized in Lyon was now cured. "There are no longer any hospitalized patients in France," said the minister.

A third case of contamination has been reported in Spain. He is an Italian national staying in the Canary Islands.

With Reuters

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