1,716 Chinese medical staff infected with coronavirus

Beijing: Chinese health authorities on Friday said that 1,716 medical staff had been infected with the novel coronavirus, accounting for 3.8 per cent of the overall confirmed cases in the country.

Among them, six people had died from the virus, accounting for 0.4 per cent of the country's total deaths which stood at 1,380 on Friday, Xinhua news agency quoted the National Health Commission as saying.

Speaking to the media, Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the commission, said of the affected medical workers, 1,502 are from Hubei province, and 1,102 from its capital city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, reports the South China Morning Post.

Friday's toll and case figures were the second daily batch to be released since the roll-out of expanded diagnostic criteria, under which a diagnosis based on an analysis of symptoms is considered a confirmed case.

The new diagnostic criteria are only being used in Hubei.

Zeng said it would not rule out using the new diagnosis metric in other provinces.

Asymptomatic people who showed symptoms such as fever and cough during quarantine would be reported as confirmed cases, he said.