A US citizen has died from the new coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in what appeared to be the first death of an American from the outbreak.

The number of deaths from China's coronavirus outbreak has risen to 723 on Saturday, surpassing the death toll from the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak on the mainland and Hong Kong almost two decades ago. 

The total number of infections across China has now reached 34,546.

Hundreds more people evacuated from the Wuhan region of China began arriving on Friday at military bases across the US to begin a two-week quarantine.