The death toll in the coronavirus outbreak has risen to 162, a startling jump of 37 since the last report on Wednesday.
The new figure - given by the Hubei Health Commission - comes as the World Health Organisation (WHO) says it will soon meet to reconsider whether the virus should be considered a global emergency.
The virus was of "grave concern" the organisation said.
More than 6000 cases have been confirmed so far, the majority in China.
The virus has also spread to more than a dozen countries, including Australia, though it has yet to reach New Zealand.
"In the last few days the progress of the virus especially in some countries, especially human-to-human transmission, worries us," WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva.
"Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak."
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday called the situation "grim and complex" and many countries - including New Zealand - are scrambling to evacuate their citizens from the city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday confirmed that New Zealand would work with Australia to pull out citizens from both countries, but said the logistics and diplomatic elements made such efforts particularly difficult.
The Chinese Government has placed the city of 11 million people in lockdown in an effort to stop the spread of the virus, though the US and Japan have managed to evacuate their citizens.
Henk Schotsman, a Kiwi traveller who is trapped in Wuhan with his partner and nine-month-old child, told The AM Show on Thursday the situation is a "nightmare".
"The worst-case scenario is that my baby gets sick," he said. "We have no medical supplies here for my baby...if our baby gets any form of sickness we really don't want to take him to the hospital."
The Ministry of Health has warned there is a high likelihood the virus will reach New Zealand but said the probability of a community outbreak was low.
WHO will meet on Thursday (local time) to reassess the situation.
