China is embarking on an ambitious project to build within six days a new 1,000-bed hospital to treat victims of a new coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Chinese state media have said they are mobilising machinery to get it ready by early next week, Reuters reported.

A total of 25 people in China have died from the virus and more than 800 have been infected, the government said on Friday, Jan. 24.

The World Health Organisation has declared it an emergency, but stopped short of declaring the epidemic of international concern.

The virus is believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, with Dec. 31 thought to be the start of the spread.

Changjiang Daily reported on Friday that prefabricated buildings will make the new hospital.

It is being built around a holiday complex originally intended for local workers.

It will be set in gardens by a lake on the outskirts of the city.

Building machinery, including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers, arrived at the site on Thursday night.

The new facility should be up by Monday morning.

"The construction of this project is to solve the shortage of existing medical resources" the report said.

"Because it will be prefabricated buildings, it will not only be built fast but it also won't cost much."

2003 experience

In 2003, Beijing battled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

As many as 774 people died in the SARS epidemic, which reached nearly 30 countries.

Seventeen years ago, Beijing built the Xiaotangshan Hospital in its northern suburbs in just a week.

Within two months, it treated one-seventh of all the country's SARS patients, the Changjiang Daily said.

"It created a miracle in the history of medical science," the paper added.

The Beijing hospital, built by 7,000 workers, was originally designed to take only people who were in recovery from SARS to relieve pressure on other hospitals.

In the end, it treated nearly 700 SARS patients.

Top photo Central Hospital of Wuhan Weibo