London: The emergency chief of the World Health Organization says the agency believes an unexplained pneumonia outbreak in Kazakhstan is likely due to the coronavirus.

Dr. Michael Ryan says Kazakh authorities have reported more than 10,000 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in the last week and just under 50,000 cases and 264 deaths as of Tuesday.

We're looking at the actual testing and the quality of testing to make sure that there haven't been false negative tests for some of those other cases of pneumonia that are provisionally tested negative, Ryan said.

He added that many pneumonia cases were likely to be COVID-19 and just have not been diagnosed correctly.

Ryan says WHO was working with local authorities to review X-rays and look at the pattern of pneumonia cases to see if they were consistent with COVID-19.

While we believe that many of these cases will be diagnosed as COVID-19, we keep an open mind, says Ryan, noting a WHO team was already in Kazakhstan. (AP)

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Imphal (PTI): Two CRPF personnel were killed and two others injured as militants attacked a camp of security forces in Manipur's Bishnupur district in the early hours of Saturday, police said.

The militants attacked an IRBn (India Reserve Battalion) camp at Naranseina in the Moirang police station area, they said.

"The militants fired indiscriminately from hilltops, targetting the camp. It started around 12.30 am and continued till about 2.15 am. The militants also hurled bombs, one of which exploded in the outpost of CRPF's 128 battalion," a senior police officer said.

The deceased were identified as CRPF sub-inspector N Sarkar and head constable Arup Saini, he said.

The injured were inspector Jadav Das and constable Aftab Das, he said, adding that they received splinter wounds.

"The two injured personnel were admitted to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal. They are out of danger," the officer said.

The CRPF personnel were deployed to provide security to the IRBn camp.

A massive search was underway to find the perpetrators of the attack, police said.