China virus death toll nears 1,500 but new cases fall
The death toll from China's coronavirus epidemic rose to 1,483 on Friday but the number of new infections in hard-hit Hubei province fell after a change in case definitions caused a massive increase the previous day.
The central province's health commission reported 116 more deaths and 4,823 new cases, the majority involving "clinically diagnosed" patients.
The province, the epicentre of the outbreak, had 242 more deaths and over 14,800 new cases on Thursday.
More than 64,600 people have now been infected in the country.
Health officials in Hubei said they started to count clinically diagnosed cases to ensure that patients get treated as early as possible instead of having to wait for laboratory tests to confirm they have the COVID-19 disease.
But the change raised concerns that the crisis may be more serious than Chinese authorities have reported.
WHO says 'way too early' to predict end of novel coronavirus
"I think it's way too early to try to predict the beginning, the middle or the end of this epidemic right now," Michael Ryan, head of WHO's health emergencies programme, said at the agency's daily news conference.