The Chinese government’s top medical adviser on the outbreak, Zhong Nanshan told Reuters that the peak  may be reached toward the middle or late this month. The National Health Commission said another 108 people had died on Tuesday, a daily record, taking to 1,016 the total of those killed in China. All but five of the deaths were in the central province of Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak. But new confirmed cases on the mainland dropped for the second time in two weeks.

Nearly 320 cases have been confirmed in 24 other countries and territories outside mainland China, according to WHO and Chinese health officials, with two deaths, one in Hong Kong and the other in the Philippines.