Meeting of top scientists underway to slow coronavirus spread

Deaths from the coronavirus epidemic have surpassed 1,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed, as hundreds of health experts began meeting at its headquarters in Geneva to help halt the spread of the disease, now officially known as COVID-19.

As infections continue rising, since the novel coronavirus outbreak was declared in central China on 31 December, Ms. Chaib noted that this was likely owing to a “combination” of improved screening and detection measures.

“You are seeing more cases because we are detecting more cases and also because it’s a backlog of cases that are now being tested in labs,” she explained.

The development comes as some 300 scientists, public health agencies, ministries of health and research funders convened for a two-day meeting at WHO to share the latest information about the virus and decide how best to confront it.

Currently, there is no vaccine to protect against it and no proven therapeutics to treat those infected, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told those gathered at WHO headquarters for the Research and Innovation Forum on novel coronavirus 2019.

Appealing to participants for their scientific insight, Tedros also called for answers to many unknowns relating to the epidemic.

“There is still so much we don’t know….We need your collective knowledge, insight and experience to answer the questions we don’t have answers to, and to identify the questions we may not even realize we need to ask.”

One of the hoped-for outcomes of the meeting is an agreed roadmap for research around which researchers and donors can align.

Tedros told reporters that it may be 18 months before the first vaccine is available. He called on Member States to be “as aggressive as possible” and view the virus as “public enemy number one”, in terms of public health.

Original source: WHO
Published on 11 February 2020