BEIJING, Feb 20 — Mainland China reported today the lowest number of confirmed cases of a new coronavirus since late January, partly due to a change in diagnostic criteria for patients in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
China had 394 new confirmed cases yesterday, the National Health Commission said, sharply down from 1,749 cases a day earlier and the lowest since January 23.
That brings the total accumulated number of confirmed cases in mainland China to 74,576.
Previously, suspected cases in the central province of Hubei that showed signs of pneumonia in chest X-rays but did not test positive for genetic traces of the coronavirus were counted as confirmed cases.
Yesterday, China's health authority removed that category of clinically diagnosed cases from its criteria for confirmed cases.
Chest X-rays were previously used in Hubei to help accelerate the process of diagnosis. The health authority said yesterday that nucleic acid tests to identify the presence of the virus were preferred.
Hubei, which accounts for most of the infections, saw a sharp drop in confirmed cases yesterday, after the change in diagnostic criteria led to the subtraction of some previously confirmed cases from the tally.
Hubei had 349 new confirmed cases reported yesterday, down from 1,693 on Tuesday and the lowest since January 25.
Excluding Hubei, the number of new confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 45, down from 56 a day earlier and falling for the 16th consecutive day.
Provinces, regions and municipalities that reported zero confirmed cases yesterday included Liaoning, Fujian, Shanxi, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guizhou, Ningxi, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai.
The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China has reached 2,118 as of the end of yesterday, up by 114 from the previous day.
Hubei reported 108 new deaths yesterday, 88 of them in the locked-down provincial capital of Wuhan.
A total of 1,585 people in Wuhan have now died from the virus, accounting for almost 75 per cent of all mainland fatalities. — Reuters
