Greece reports its first Covid-19 death

Greece on Thursday has reported the first death due to coronavirus as a number of European Union countries, including, Spain and Austria have seen a spurt in COVID-19 cases.

The victim was a 66-year-old Greek man from a group of people who had a travel history from Israel and Egypt, reported Xinhua.

He was hospitalized in the city of Patras in western Greece on March 2 and died in the early hours Thursday after suffering multiple organ failure.

Greece has reported 99 confirmed cases of the new virus including 95 Greek nationals and four foreign nationals.

Greek authorities have been stepping up measures to curb the spread of the epidemic amid rising cases.

Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a televised statement that "no mass measure can replace personal responsibility."

The World Health Organisation has declared the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 as a pandemic, "We're deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction," the Director-General of WHO Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference.

The number of cases and deaths changes by the hour, 121,564 with at least 4,373 deaths across the world as of Wednesday morning, according to data by Johns Hopkins University.

Italy has surpassed South Korea to become the largest coronavirus hotbed outside China with more than 9,000 infections and over 400 deaths.