Drone shots, updates on virus from Italian hospital

The coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy continues to take its toll on the country's public health system.

The region of Lombardy has been the epicenter of Italy's outbreak, registering the first positive test and now accounting for 984 of Italy's 1,694 cases.

Already, hospitals in hard-hit Lodi and Cremona were overwhelmed at times last week, with more patients arriving than could be accepted.

Dr Massimo Galli, head of the infectious disease unit at Milan's Sacco Hospital said the region was simply unable to cope with the scale of the epidemic facing it.

Lombardy's regional government has asked the central government to reactivate retired doctors and nurses.

In addition, nursing students who were due to take their final exams next month are now expected to graduate in the coming days so they can be immediately put to work, according to the region's top health official Giulio Gallera.

A 38-year-old man who is believed to be "patient one", the first source of local transmission of the virus, has been at the San Matteo hospital in Pavia for more than two weeks.

He is described as being in a stable condition.

According to a doctor at the hospital, physicians have been receiving news from Chinese colleagues and were working with virologists and infectologists help to fight the disease.