The overall death toll in mainland China due to the deadly coronavirus has increased to 2,345, while the number of confirmed cases reached 76,288, according to the health authorities on Saturday.

According to the country’s National Health Commission, it received reports of 397 new confirmed and 109 deaths on Friday from 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

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Among the deaths, 106 were in Hubei province and one each in Hebei Province, Shanghai and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

Earlier on Thursday, 45 Ukrainians and 27 foreign nationals were flown from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly outbreak, to Kharkiv, BBC reported.

Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said a fake email claiming to be from the health ministry falsely said some evacuees had contracted the virus, the statement added.

Ukraine has no confirmed cases of the coronavirus and the Health Ministry said that none of the evacuees was sick.

The number of deaths is higher than the previous day when 114 people died of the disease, but the country reported the lowest number of new infection cases in nearly a month, fuelling hopes that Beijing’s epidemic control efforts were working.

Hong Kong has confirmed the virus in 62 patients, two of whom have died. The first infections were largely found within people who had travelled to the epicentre in China’s central Hubei province.

Thailand, which has imposed no such restrictions, reported a 90 per cent slump in arrivals from the mainland this month, a gut punch to an already beleaguered tourist sector which makes up nearly a fifth of the economy.

In 2003, 299 Hong Kongers were killed by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) — 40 per cent of the global total fatalities.

Hubei Province, a centre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, reported 411 new confirmed cases and 115 new deaths on Thursday, according to the provincial health commission on Friday.

Authorities have placed about 56 million people in hard-hit central Hubei under an unprecedented lockdown. Other cities far from the epicentre have restricted the movements of residents, while Beijing ordered people arriving in the capital to undergo a 14-day self-quarantine.

The novel Coronavirus outbreak has caused alarm as it has crossed global fatalities in the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.

(With inputs from agency)