The number of deaths in China’s central Hubei province from a coronavirus outbreak had risen by 81 to 699 as of Friday, the province’s health commission said in a statement on its website on Saturday.

There had been a further 2,841 cases detected in Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, taking the total in the province to 24,953.

The coronavirus has killed 86 more people in China and been confirmed in a further 3,399, the National Health Commission reported on Saturday. That brings the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 34,546,

The new deaths, 81 in Hubei and 5 in other provinces, have brought the national death toll to 722, as of Friday.

The worldwide death total stands at 725 deaths and more than 35,000 confirmed cases of infection.

Most of the new deaths were in Hubei’s provincial capital of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated.

Wuhan reported 67 new deaths on Friday, up from 64 on Thursday. A total of 545 people in Wuhan have now died from the virus.

New confirmed cases in Wuhan increased by 1,985 on Friday, up from 1,501 on Thursday.

- Reuters