Timelapse shows work on China coronavirus hospital set for completion in matter of days
Chinese authorities are building a new 1,000-bed hospital specifically designed for patients who have contracted the new coronavirus and it will be completed in a matter of days.
Footage taken by a resident shows a timelapse of the hospital being built on a site in Wuhan - a city of 11 million people in Hubei province where the virus is thought to have originated.
The pre-fabricated 270,000-square foot hospital is scheduled for completion by February 3 and is modelled after the Xiaotangshan SARS hospital in Beijing.
Footage from 24 January shows construction underway at the site
Work on the Wuhan hospital began only days ago.
The SARS hospital was built from scratch in 2003 in just six days to treat an outbreak of a similar respiratory virus which spread from China to more than a dozen countries and killed around 800 people.
Footage from the new building site in Wuhan shows lines of lorries and dozens of workers on the site all wearing face masks as a precaution to stop the spread of the disease.
Footage from 30 January shows progress of construction at the two hospital sites
Wuhan is one of several cities in China which have been put on lockdown, as normally bustling streets and public spaces remain eerily quiet.
A number of other travel and border restrictions are now in place throughout China and worldwide as authorities work to stop the spread of the virus.
Footage shows empty streets of Wuhan
Hospitals in Hubei province have struggled to deal with the increased number of patients and a lack of supplies.
Videos circulating on social media show dozens of people in masks lining up and waiting to be checked by health officials.
The death toll in China passed 170 on Thursday, infections rose to 7,711 and cases of human-to-human transmission were confirmed in at least three other countries.
So far, all the deaths and the majority of the infections have been in China, though at least 40 cases in 15 other countries have been reported.
Other cases have been found in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the US, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, France, Canada, Germany and Australia.
India confirmed its first case on Thursday, as did the Philippines.
The WHO has said the "whole world needs to be on alert" over the new coronavirus outbreak.