A Chinese tourist has died from the new coronavirus in France -  the first death confirmed outside of Asia - the French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on Saturday. 

Only three deaths have been recorded outside China's mainland so far - in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan. 

In the French case, the patient was an 80-year-old Chinese tourist who other French authorities said was initially turned away from two French hospitals when he first fell ill.
 

"I was informed yesterday that an 80-year-old who was hospitalized at the Bichat hospital since January 25th has died from a pulmonary infection due to the coronavirus,"  said Health Minister Buzyn.

"This patient was a Chinese tourist from Hubei province, arrived in France on January 16th and was hospitalized in the Bichat hospital under strict measures of isolation on January 25th. 

"His state deteriorated quickly and he was in critical state for several days in the intensive care unit. "

"His daughter, also infected with the COVID-19 has been treated in the same hospital. Her condition has improved and she should be able to leave the hospital soon."

Bichat hospital is among a handful in France with special isolation rooms.

As of Saturday, four of the 11 confirmed virus cases in France have been "cured" and left the hospital, the latest a French physician on Friday, Buzyn revealed.

Six others still remain in hospital. Buzyn said their conditions, "are not worrying at this moment."

But she said: "We have to get our health system ready to face a possible pandemic propagation of the virus, and therefore the spreading of the virus across France."

Robin Thompson, an expert in mathematical epidemiology at Britain's University of Oxford, said that with nearly 50 cases in Europe, a death was not surprising. "The most important thing to point out, however, is that there still hasn't been sustained person-to-person transmission in Europe," he added.

With Reuters and AP.