By Trend

An 80-year-old Chinese tourist infected with the coronavirus has died in France, Paris said on Saturday, becoming the first fatality in Europe and the fourth outside mainland China from an epidemic that has rattled the world, Trend reports citing Reuters.

Thought to have come from a wildlife market in the central Chinese province of Hubei, the outbreak has presented the ruling Communist Party with a huge challenge in curbing its spread while minimizing damage to the world’s second-largest economy.

Beijing’s latest figures on Saturday showed 66,492 cases and 1,523 deaths, mostly in Hubei. Outside mainland China there have been about 500 cases in some two dozen countries and territories, with four deaths - in Japan, Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, the Philippines and France.

In the French case, the Chinese man died at the Bichat hospital in Paris of a lung infection due to the flu-like virus, authorities said.

“We have to get our health system ready to face a possible pandemic propagation of the virus, and therefore the spreading of the virus across France,” said Health Minister Agnes Buzyn.