UN health experts arrives in China as death level increases

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Islamabad, 10 February 2020 (GNP): International experts on health affairs led by the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for Beijing to help investigate China’s coronavirus epidemic, which authorities said on Monday had now claimed 908 lives on the mainland.

The outbreak has caused huge disruptions in China with usually busy cities becoming virtual ghost towns over the past two weeks as Communist Party rulers ordered communities sealed off, cancelled flights, closed factories and shut schools.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who made a trip to Beijing for talks with President Xi Jinping and Chinese ministers in late January, returned with an agreement on sending an international mission.

The WHO declared the outbreak a global emergency on January 30, days after the Chinese central government sealed off the province of Hubei and its capital Wuhan, the epicenter of a virus that emerged in December in a seafood market. (GNP)