WHO COVID-19 expert team comes from global institutions: chief

The chief of the World Health Organization said on Thursday that the WHO-led international team investigating COVID-19 in China includes experts from research institutions from around the world.

The team has been brought together through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which includes experts in epidemiology, virology, clinical management, outbreak control and public health, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a daily briefing.

He said that members of the team come from the National University of Singapore, the Saint Petersburg Pasteur Institute, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases from Japan, the Seoul National University College of Medicine from South Korea, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US National Institutes of Health, the Russian National Medical Research Center of Phthisiopulmonology and Infectious Diseases, and the Robert Koch Institute of Germany.

Tedros said the international experts are working with their Chinese counterparts to find answers to some of the things still unknown about the virus, including its transmissibility and the impact of the measures that China has taken.