Coronavirus. Death toll in China exceeds SARS

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today the dispatch in the next few days of an international mission led by that organization to China, the country where the new coronavirus appeared.

Ethiopian Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had received a positive response from Beijing today about the deployment of the mission.

The director-general of WHO indicated that the team leader will leave for Chinese territory between Monday and Tuesday and that the remaining specialists will follow in the next few days.

Asked whether members of the United States’ Center for Disease Control and Prevention will join the mission, the WHO official replied only, “We hope so.”

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declined to name the leader of the mission or the other elements and did not provide further details on the work to be carried out by specialists in Chinese territory.

“WHO will disclose everything as soon as we are ready,” he concluded.

The new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which can cause potentially serious respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, was first detected at the end of the year in Wuhan, in the province of Hubei (central China).

Since then, along with the mainland of China and the Chinese regions of Macau and Hong Kong, other cases of infection with the new coronavirus have been confirmed in more than 20 countries.

The WHO declared on January 30 a public health emergency at an international level, which implies the adoption of preventive and coordinating measures worldwide.

Last Wednesday, the United Nations called for the creation of a $ 675 million (€ 613 million) fund to combat the outbreak of the new coronavirus in the next three months.
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