Australian scientists have reportedly created a lab-grown version of the deadly coronavirus, becoming the first team outside of China to do so.

Australian scientists have managed to replicate the coronavirus in laboratory conditions in a medical breakthrough that could help speed up the development of a vaccine to combat the deadly virus.

Researchers at Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity have become the first to recreate the virus outside of China, the ABC reported on Wednesday.

The lab-grown virus - which was developed from an infected patient - will be shared with the World Health Organisation before being given to labs across the globe.

"We got it," Doherty Institute co-deputy director Mike Catton told the ABC. "Fantastic."

Researchers across the world are trying to develop a vaccine to stop people dying from the coronavirus.

The death toll has jumped past 100 and there are now more than 4500 confirmed cases of infection in mainland China.

The city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the illness, remains on lockdown along with other Chinese cities as China authorities scramble to stop the disease spreading.

Five people are being treated in Australian hospitals for the virus, with four of those cases in NSW alone.