A host of state intelligence services warned early of a new coronavirus with the potential to wreak havoc worldwide, yet many governments failed to heed the warnings -- a mistake that experts say they are unlikely to make again.

Up to 190,000 people in Africa could die of coronavirus in the first year of the pandemic if containment measures fail, the World Health Organisation warned on Thursday.

A study performed in New York hospitals found no evidence of either harm or benefit from giving the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to severely ill coronavirus patients.

"The risk of intubation or death was not significantly higher or lower among patients who received hydroxychloroquine than among those who did not," the authors of the study said.

The United States recorded 2,448 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 75,543, according to the latest real-time tally Thursday reported by Johns Hopkins University.

As scientists scramble for a COVID-19 cure and vaccine, the world marks on Friday a pertinent anniversary: humanity's only true triumph over an infectious disease with its eradication of smallpox four decades ago.

Australia's government on Friday unveiled a three-stage plan to get the economy back to a new "COVID-safe" normal by the end of July.

Hong Kong on Friday began to ease major social distancing measures with bars, gyms, beauty parlours and cinemas reopening their doors after the financial hub largely halted local transmissions of the deadly coronavirus.

Queues formed outside gyms in the semi-autonomous Chinese city on Friday morning for employees to check temperatures as people celebrated the return of some normalcy to the city.

Iran said on Thursday its coronavirus outbreak was "relatively stable" as it announced another 68 deaths as well as more than 1,000 infections for a fourth straight day.

The British government was on Thursday reviewing lockdown measures introduced to combat the coronavirus outbreak, with a partial easing expected to be announced this weekend.

The number of people killed by the new coronavirus in Europe has surpassed 150,000, most of them in Britain, Italy, Spain and France, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources at 0910 GMT Thursday.