China virus toll reaches 1,765 - government UPDATED

In its daily update, the province Hubei's health commission also reported 1,933 new cases while at least 70,400 people have now been infected nationwide. .UPDATED.

According to updated data, the death rate from the novel coronavirus in China stands at 2.28%.

More than 185,000 people in China who had direct contacts with those infected remain under medical observation, and about 16,000 are going through quarantine.

Coronavirus outbreak

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Coronavirus cases have also been reported in 24 other countries, including Russia. The WHO declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus a global health emergency.

The death toll from China's new coronavirus epidemic jumped past 1,700 on Monday after 100 more people died in hard-hit Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.

In its daily update, the province's health commission also reported 1,933 new cases.

At least 70,400 people have now been infected nationwide. Most are in Hubei, where the virus first emerged in December before spiralling into a nationwide epidemic. The number of new cases in the province had been declining since a large spike last week when officials changed their criteria for counting cases to include people diagnosed through lung imaging. Monday's figures were around 100 higher than those on Sunday but still sharply down on those from Friday and Saturday. Outside of hardest-hit Hubei, the number of new cases has been declining and a spokesman for China's national health authority said on Sunday that the slowing figures were a sign the outbreak was being controlled.

However, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned it is "impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take".

International experts have arrived in Beijing and begun meeting with their Chinese counterparts over the epidemic, Tedros said on Twitter.