BEIJING: Over 550 people have died in China after contacting a new strain of coronavirus which has infected about 28,000 people in about two dozen countries.
The efforts to find the best way to treat the disease as well as contain its rapid spread are continuing apace in China and beyond, with the world’s leading experts on the coronavirus set to meet in Geneva next week.
The gathering on Tuesday and Wednesday announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) will discuss treatments and vaccines as well as looking at the possible source of the pathogen and how it spreads.
In Italy, two seriously ill Chinese coronavirus patients are being subjected to an “experimental anti-viral therapy.”
The couple has been given lopinavir/ritonavir, a drug normally used against HIV infections, and remdesivir, which has been used against Ebola, the Spallanzani hospital treating them said.
“These medicines have been recommended by the World Health Organization as the most promising on the basis of available data,” the hospital said.
The Chinese couple, from Wuhan, were taken ill while on a tour of Italy. They have been under intensive care since Tuesday and their condition was described as serious but “stable.” — dpa
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