New Delhi: The death toll due to the outbreak of deadly Coronavirus in China has reached to 41, while the number of infected cases has soared to nearly 1,300, news agency AFP quoted Chinese officials as saying on early Saturday. According to statement issued by the Hubei Health Commission, the 15 new deaths all took place in Wuhan, the city of 11 million where the deadly respiratory contagion first emerged.

At least 444 new cases of the virus have been found, raising the total number to 1,287, the National Health Commission said in a separate statement. The disease has spread to 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Wuhan and 13 other cities in Hubei have been locked down in an unprecedented quarantine effort aimed at containing the deadly respiratory contagion, which has spread to several other countries.

The Hubei Health Commission also reported 180 new cases overall in the province, 77 of them in Wuhan but the bulk of the rest spread out across the locked-down smaller cities. There are now 729 cases in Hubei alone.

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Several of those cities were reporting their first cases of the pathogen -- 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) -- the commission said. The previously unknown virus has caused global concern because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.

Apart from China, Thailand has five cases, Singapore and Taiwan three has three each, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and the United States have each reported two cases, and Nepal one.

Meanwhile in India, three people who returned from China have been kept under observation at a Mumbai hospital for possible exposure to the novel coronavirus. Till now, no cases of coronavirus infection have been detected during screening of passengers at the Mumbai airport, a health department official had said on Friday.

"No passenger with history of visit to Wuhan city of China in the last 14 days was found positive (for the virus) during thermal scanning," he had said.

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As many as 1,789 passengers underwent thermal screening at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport here for the coronavirus since January 19. Two of them, who had traveled to China, were admitted to civic- run Kasturba Hospital in the city as a precaution.

Common symptoms of the infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties, according to the World Health Organisation.

Authorities at various airports would be following up with every passenger who has returned from any of the countries where outbreak of coronavirus has been reported for the next 28 days to check if she or he has developed symptoms of the infection.

(With inputs from PTI)