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WHO to send mission to China

Published:Saturday | February 8, 2020 | 12:00 AM(AP) -
In this Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, photo, a nurse takes notes in the isolation ward for 2019-nCoV patients at a hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province. The number of confirmed cases of the new virus has risen again in China, as the ruling Communist Party faced anger and recriminations from the public over the death of a doctor who was threatened by police after trying to sound the alarm about the disease over a month ago. (AP)

BEIJING (AP)- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says it has received a response from China on the dispatch of a WHO-led international mission to the country, where the novel coronavirus has killed hundreds of people. 

Director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says the team leader will leave on Monday or Tuesday and the rest of the experts will follow. Asked whether members of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be part of the team, he replied, “We hope so.”

Tedros would not immediately name the leader or the rest of the team, or give further details, saying that WHO will “publicise everything as soon as we’re ready.”

China announced that the virus has killed 722 people, as of today, including a 60 year-old American. It said 3,399 more people had been diagnosed with the virus over the last 24 hours, reversing two days of declines, raising the total number of cases on the mainland to 34,546.

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