Last checked at 
(Adds more details from WHO news conference; updates figures;
adds France, Canada evacuation plans)
* Coronavirus death toll rises to 133
* WHO panel to meet again on whether to declare global
emergency
* China state economist sees hard hit to Q1 growth
* Japan, U.S., UK, France and Canada evacuating citizens
* Australian laboratory develops lab version of virus
By Se Young Lee and Stephanie Nebehay
BEIJING/GENEVA, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Foreign governments flew
their citizens out of the epicentre of China's coronavirus
outbreak on Wednesday, as the number of deaths jumped to 133 and
the World Health Organization voiced "grave concern" about
person-to-person spread in three other countries.
The WHO said its Emergency Committee would reconvene behind
closed doors on Thursday to decide whether the rapid spread of
the new virus from China now constitutes a global emergency.
"In the last few days the progress of the virus especially
in some countries, especially human-to-human transmission,
worries us," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news
conference in Geneva, naming Germany, Vietnam and Japan.
"Although the numbers outside China are still relatively
small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak."
There have been 6,065 cases of the flu-like virus in 15
countries worldwide - all but around 70 in China - according to
the latest WHO figures. All the deaths so far have been in
China, where the National Health Commission said there had been
132 fatalities as of end-Tuesday. Another death was reported in
Sichuan province on Wednesday.
The situation remained "grim and complex", said Chinese
President Xi Jinping, who on Tuesday had vowed to defeat the
"devil" virus. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had spoken to
Xi and his administration was working closely with China on
containing the outbreak.
Some major airlines suspended flights to China, and a senior
economist predicted a major impact on growth.
The WHO's panel of 16 independent experts twice last week
declined to declare an international emergency, but will
re-evaluate the situation on Thursday.
"We are at an important juncture in this event. We believe
these chains of transmission can still be interrupted," said
Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO's Health Emergencies
Programme.
Ryan also praised China's response, saying: "They are taking
extraordinary measures in the face of what is an extraordinary
challenge."
STREETS DESERTED
In many Chinese cities, streets were largely deserted.
Tourist attractions were closed, while Starbucks coffee shops
required people to have their temperatures taken and to wear
masks.
"It's my first time here in Asia, I feel very unlucky," said
Brazilian tourist Amanda Lee, 23, cutting short a trip. "I
couldn't even see the places I wanted, like the Great Wall."
Almost all the deaths so far have been in the central
province of Hubei, home to about 60 million people and now under
virtual lockdown. The virus emerged last month in a live wild
animal market in the provincial capital Wuhan.
"I was extremely worried that I was stuck there," said Takeo
Aoyama, who arrived in Tokyo on a chartered plane carrying 206
Japanese out of Wuhan as some governments began evacuating their
citizens.
The United States flew about 210 Americans out of Wuhan, to
be screened several times on arrival in California. France said
a first flight of French nationals would leave on Wednesday
night and Britain said it would put 200 citizens on a charter
plane on Thursday. Canada was also organising
evacuations.
The virus is weighing heavily on the world's second-biggest
economy, with companies cutting corporate travel to China and
tourists cancelling trips. Various airlines are cutting flights,
from British Airways and Lufthansa to
Tanzania's national carrier that postponed maiden flights.
A government economist said the crisis could cut China's
first quarter growth by one point to 5% or lower as the crisis
hits sectors from mining to luxury goods.
Hong Kong stocks took a beating on the first day of trading
after the Lunar New Year break. Casino and financial stocks led
the Hang Seng index 2.5% lower to a seven-month trough.
"In our view, the worst is yet to come," securities firm
Nomura said, warning of a severe, near-term blow to China's
economy.
'LESS DEADLY THAN SARS'
But in a potentially major step towards finding a vaccine,
scientists in Australia said they had developed a lab-grown
version of the virus, the first recreated outside China.
The researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection
and Immunity said they would share the sample, grown from an
infected patient, with the WHO and global laboratories in the
hope of hastening immunisation and detection.
The number of cases of the new virus in China now exceeds
the 5,327 that were infected with the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS), which also originated in China and killed about
800 people globally in 2002 and 2003.
While some experts believe the new strain, known as
"2019-nCoV", is not as deadly as SARS, alarm has grown over its
rapid spread and many unknown attributes.
"There have been more cases in China, but so far with a
lower death rate than the SARS outbreak," said Michael Head, a
health researcher at Britain's University of Southampton.
Like other respiratory infections, the new virus is spread
by droplets from coughs and sneezes, with an incubation time
between one and 14 days.
(Reporting by Cheng Leng in Shanghai, Se Young Lee, Lusha
Zhang, Gabriel Crossley, Tony Munroe, Huizhong W, Judy Hua,
Nanlin Fang and Joyce Zhou in Beijing and Stephanie Nebehay and
Emma Farge in Geneva; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols
at the United Nations, Matthias Blamont in Paris, Akira
Tomoshige in Tokyo, Kate Kelland in London, Ben Blanchard in
Taipei; Writing by Robert Birsel, Andrew Cawthorne and Alex
Richardson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Nick Macfie and Hugh
Lawson)
