02/16/2020 - 15:23
- Clarín.com
- World
Taiwan recorded the first death by coronavirus in the country with the death of a taxi driver who had not left the territory but had moved people from China, local health minister Chen Shih Chung said Sunday.
This is a person in his 60s who was hospitalized on February 3 with respiratory problems and subsequently was diagnosed with pneumonia, the DPA news agency published.
Chen explained at a press conference that this person died late Saturday.
According to the official news agency CNA, the man suffered from diabetes and hepatitis B and had had no close contact with any confirmed case of COVID-19. "It could be the first case transmitted locally in Taiwan," Chen said.
At the same time, about 60 people who worked with that patient, the majority of them medical, gave a negative coronavirus so far, Chen said.
The deceased person worked as a taxi driver in central Taiwan and had not left the country. However, it took people from China, Hong Kong and Macao, so it is investigated with which people it may have had contact.
Taiwanese health authorities are now checking their medical records, data stored in their phone and surveillance cameras to determine how they could have been infected with the virus.
Chen also reported that two new cases were confirmed on the island, bringing the total of those infected by the virus to 20 people.
With this death, to date there have been five deaths outside of mainland China - in Taiwan, Japan, France, the Philippines and Hong Kong - where the outbreak was born.
Until this Sunday, the Ministry of Health of China confirmed 1,665 dead and 68,500 infected in the outbreak of the new coronavirusoriginated in the city of Wuhan.