A 31-YEAR-OLD man, who worked in Macau and was a frequent visitor to mainland China, is the latest coronavirus case in Malaysia, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 18.

The Malaysian returned home on February 1 and two days later, felt ill and suffered coughs, said the director-general of health. On February 7, he was referred to Hospital Sg Buloh after being diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Yesterday, further samples taken from the patient showed that he is the 18th coronavirus case in the country.

In China, AFP reports that the number of deaths from the coronavirus epidemic jumped to 904 today after the hardest-hit province of Hubei reported 91 new fatalities.

In its daily update, Hubei’s health commission also confirmed another 2,618 new cases in the central province, where the outbreak emerged in December.

There are now more than 39,800 confirmed cases across China, based on previously released figures from the government.

The new virus is believed to have emerged last year in a market that sells wild animals in Hubei’s capital Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak, before spreading across the country.

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

The toll has overtaken the global number of deaths caused by the SARS virus, which killed 774 people in 2002-03. – February 10, 2020.