The total number of people who have died from the coronavirus worldwide has now exceeded 2,000, according to the latest numbers released Tuesday.
The vast majority of those have been in mainland China, where at least 2,004 deaths have now been reported. Five others have been reported in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and France, making the global total 2,009.
The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus is in excess of 75,121 with most of those also being in mainland China.
Mainland China had 1,749 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Tuesday, the country's National Health Commission said on Wednesday, down from 1,886 cases a day earlier and the lowest since Jan. 29.
The central province of Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, reported 132 new deaths, while in the provincial capital of Wuhan, 116 people died.
Though China reported its fewest new coronavirus infections since January on Tuesday and its lowest daily death toll for a week, the World Health Organization said data suggesting the epidemic had slowed should still be viewed with caution.
The head of a leading hospital in China's central city of Wuhan, epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, died of the disease on Tuesday, becoming one of the most prominent victims since the disease first appeared at the end of last year.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Chinese data "appears to show a decline in new cases" but any apparent trend "must be interpreted very cautiously."
Outside China, there have been 827 cases of the disease, known as COVID-19, and five deaths, according to a Reuters count based on official statements. More than half of those cases have been on a cruise ship quarantined off Japan.
Tedros said there had been 92 cases of human-to-human spread of the coronavirus in 12 countries outside China but the WHO did not have the data to make meaningful comparisons to what was going on in China.
"We have not seen sustained local transmission of coronavirus except in specific circumstances like the Diamond Princess cruise ship," he said.
China says figures indicating a slowdown in new cases in recent days show that aggressive steps it has taken to curb travel and commerce are slowing the spread of the disease beyond central Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan.