SHANGHAI (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS, AFP) – The number of deaths in China’s central Hubei province from a coronavirus outbreak had risen by 81 to 780 as of Saturday (Feb 8), the province’s health commission said in a statement on its website on Sunday morning.

A further 2,147 cases have been detected in Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, taking the total in the province to 27,100.

It is the fewest number of infections to be reported in a week, as World Health Organisation officials said the outbreak may be stabilising in the region where the illness first emerged.  But it also cautioned that it was too early to say if the virus has peaked.

The confirmed cases have climbed by more than 2,000 daily since Feb 2, peaking at 3,156 two days later. Confirmed cases also fell in the city of Wuhan, according to the report.

The death toll in China from the outbreak is now 803, bringing the total number of people who have died worldwide to 805. The toll is now higher than the global number of deaths caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) virus, which killed 774 people in 2002-2003.

There are now 36,693 confirmed cases in China, in less than two months after surfacing in late December in Wuhan. 

A 60-year-old US citizen diagnosed with the virus died on Thursday in Wuhan, according to the US embassy.  A Japanese man in his 60s with a suspected coronavirus infection also died in hospital in Wuhan, the Japanese foreign ministry said. 

The only confirmed fatalities outside the mainland are a Chinese man in the Philippines and a 39-year-old man in Hong Kong. 

On Saturday, Singapore reported seven additional confirmed cases of infections, bringing its total to 40. None had travelled to China recently. 

Of these, five are linked to previously announced cases. Among the new confirmed cases are a taxi driver and a private-hire car driver, the Ministry of Health said.

Grab Holdings, which runs Singapore’s biggest ride-hailing app, said it will temporarily suspend its GrabShare carpooling services starting Sunday.  

The 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, killed 774 people and sickened almost 8,100 others, in 26 countries, over eight months, the World Health Organisation said.

Mainland China accounted for about 45% of Sars deaths.

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