CHINA – It has been just 30 hours after the delivery when the medics diagnosed a Chinese newborn with the new coronavirus in the case that has already become the youngest during a killer disease’ outbreak, Chinese media said.

The mother gave birth to the child on 2 February in Wuhan, the city which is considered to be the epicentre of the virus.

The media insists that the woman had been tested positive before she gave birth. At this stage, the doctors who are monitoring the case are yet to find out if the virus was transmitted to the newborn in the womb, or after birth.

The global statistics indicate that only a few minors have become the victims of the virus, which has killed 563 people and infected 28,018 (according to current information, February 6).

State media outlet Xinhua reported news of the infection late on Wednesday.

The article noticed that the baby, who weighed 3.25kg at birth (7lbs 2oz), was now in a stable condition and under observation.

“This reminds us to pay attention to mother-to-child being a possible route of coronavirus transmission,” chief physician of Wuhan Children Hospital’s neonatal medicine department, Zeng Lingkong, told Reuters.

Nevertheless, there is still a possibility that the child was infected after birth from having close contact with the mother.

“It’s quite possible that the baby picked it up very conventionally – by inhaling virus droplets that came from the mother coughing,” Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said.