Older men with chronic health conditions are more likely to contract the novel coronavirus and are also more likely to develop severe or fatal respiratory disease, Chinese specialists warn.

Infectious and respiratory disease physicians from Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) first emerged, report an 11% fatality rate in their analysis of early cases, published in the Lancet.

As the virus continues to spread, WHO estimates the fatality rate at about 2%, compared with 10% for SARS and 35% for MERS. To date, there have been more than 17,000 reported cases and 362 deaths, including one death outside China, in the Philippines.

Half (49%) of the cases they describe — the first 99 patients treated in Wuhan’s specialist infectious diseases Jinyintan Hospital in January — had been exposed to a seafood and live animal market.