French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn. Photo: Ludovic Marin/Contributor/Getty Images
French Health Minister Agnès Buzyn confirmed on Saturday the death of a Chinese patient diagnosed with coronavirus in a Paris hospital, the first COVID-19 casualty outside of Asia.
The state of play: "I was informed last night of the death of an 80-year-old patient who was hospitalized ... since January 25 and who had a pulmonary infection from the coronavirus," Buzyn said.
- She explained that the patient, a tourist, arrived in France on Jan. 16 from the Hubei province of China, the epicenter of the outbreak. The individual had been hospitalized and isolated since Jan. 25.
The big picture: Europe has more than 60 confirmed cases of the virus, with Germany having the most at 16, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
- As of Saturday, there are 67,097 confirmed cases of the virus globally, including 15 in the United States.
- There have been only four deaths reported outside mainland China, in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan and France.
Go deeper: Global coronavirus deaths continue rising, as U.S. reports 15th case