'Maybe virus didn't originate from China'

Mainland respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan says the coronavirus may not have originated in China, and he is confident the Covid-19 epidemic will be contained by the end of April.

Although the first case was reported in Wuhan in Hubei province, Zhong said at a press conference in Guangzhou its source may not have come from the country.

The remark was made as the United States identified its first case of novel coronavirus without outbreak ties.

Zhong predicted the mainland will not see a large increase in confirmed cases in the coming months, even though more people are returning to offices and factories.

"The disease will basically be brought under control by the end of April, meaning people will be able to return to their normal work," he said. "This is the condition in mainland China. As for outside China, the situation is under observation."

Zhong said he could not predict the development of the coronavirus in other countries and regions as the number of new cases being reported has now surpassed the mainland's.

Italy, Iran and South Korea have emerged as new hotspots for the coronavirus.

By last night, South Korea reported 505 new cases, taking the total to 1,766, with 13 deaths. Italy had 400 cases and 12 deaths, the largest outbreak outside Asia.

Japan has 186 confirmed cases, excluding non-Japanese on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, and seven people have died. Iran added 106 new cases and seven more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 245 cases and 26 deaths.

One of the new cases in Iran was the chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign affairs committee, Mojtaba Zolnour.

He is the second high-profile Iran politician with Covid-19 after deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi, who is the head of the government's coronavirus task force, announced his diagnosis on Tuesday.

Twenty countries across Europe and the Middle East confirmed their first cases in the past week, including Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Israel.

China yesterday reported 433 newly confirmed cases while at least 614 additional cases were recorded outside the mainland. At least 50 countries had confirmed cases by last night.

There were 29 more deaths reported in the mainland yesterday - the lowest daily figure in nearly a month.

The death toll reached 2,744 on the mainland and 78,497 cases yesterday, said the National Health Commission.

More than 3,000 medical workers have been infected, with at least 20 deaths. A total of 293 police officers and 111 auxiliary police have been infected and four died.

Zhong said he has been invited by European countries to give a video address over the weekend to talk about China's situation and experience in the fight against the disease.

He called for expansion of international cooperation for the fight against Covid-19 in the coming weeks.

"We need to seek to expand international cooperation. This is a disease faced by human beings, not just one country," he said.

In addition to early discovery, detection and isolation, large cities should build designated hospitals to focus on treating novel coronavirus patients, he said.

The mainland also expressed growing concern over new cases imported from other countries, even before the first case of a Chinese returning from Iran was confirmed with the virus on Wednesday.

The city government of Zhongwei in Ningxia has been urgently tracking down the close contacts of the patient on two flights, two trains and one private vehicle that he took between February 19 and 24.

The patient first took a flight from Iran on February 19 to Moscow and then stayed at a capsule hotel for 16 hours near the airport, said the local government. The following day, he took a flight from Moscow to Shanghai and then checked into a hotel.

On February 21, he took a private vehicle booked via Didi App from the airport to a train station. He took a train to Lanzhou city in Gansu province and transferred to another train to get to Zhongwei on February 24.

Meanwhile, the central government has sent an investigation team to probe how a discharged female prisoner who was infected with coronavirus in locked-down Wuhan reached Beijing via a private vehicle, bypassing strict traffic regulations in several cities.

The Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Beijing said the woman, surnamed Huang, drove to Beijing on February 22 and tested for the coronavirus in hospital the following day after complaining of fever. She was confirmed with Covid-19 on Monday.

She reported to the center that she was living in Wuhan before going to Beijing, where she had a fever on and off for five days on February 18.

China Business Network reported the woman was recently released from a prison in Wuhan, where she was already confirmed with the virus.

The case sparked a nationwide outcry, with state media and many citizens demanding answers on whether the regulation system failed or the woman was well-connected in high places.

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