MOSCOW, March 13 (Bernama) — China’s first coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case was registered back on Nov 17, not in December as it had been said previously, Sputnik news agency quoted media report on Friday that cited governmental documents.
According to the South China Morning Post newspaper, the county’s first person suffering from COVID-19 could be a 55-year-old resident of the Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
The newspaper added that nine COVID-19 cases had been registered in November, but none of the infected people was confirmed as “patient zero.”
As COVID-19 has affected over 110 countries, the World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic on Wednesday. The total number of confirmed cases worldwide has surpassed 128,000, with the death toll standing at 4,720 and the number of recovered people exceeding 68,000. While the virus keeps spreading globally, triggering travel bans and events cancellations, China’s peak of the epidemic is over, with the country registering only eight new cases over the past 24 hours.
–BERNAMA