Belgium's coronavirus death toll exceeds 1,000

The number of deaths attributed to the coronavirus pandemic in Belgium increased sharply and exceeded 1,000 on Thursday, health officials said, Report informs referring to Daily Sabah.

The official toll has doubled in the space of three days, in part because figures have been updated with a backlog of fatalities from retirement homes.

There have now been 1,001 deaths and 15,348 officially recorded cases since the start of the outbreak, officials told a daily news conference.

Belgium, with a population of 11.5 million people, is one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus in Europe.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019 in China's Hubei province, and the virus has spread to 200 countries and territories since then.

On February 11, the WHO officially named the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as COVID-19, and on March 11, declared it a pandemic.