China ready to cooperate with Russia to develop vaccine against new coronavirus - diplomat

MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/. China is open for cooperation with Russian researchers to develop a vaccine against the new coronavirus which has caused a pneumonia outbreak, Fang Xianrong, a minister plenipotentiary of the Chinese embassy in Moscow said on Monday. "The Chinese side is ready to cooperate with your [Russian] best specialists to develop a vaccine and a corresponding medicine the soonest possible. Both China and Russia possess a vast expertise in these spheres," he said. According to the diplomat, Moscow and Beijing have established an online pneumonia-related information exchange mechanism. "The Russian side can receive updated information on a daily basis and Chine can share its prevention and treatment expertise," he explained. In late December 2019, Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial metropolis in central China with a population of 11 million. The infecting agent was identified as coronavirus 2019-nCoV. Cases of the new coronavirus were also reported from 23 other countries, including Australia, Vietnam, India, Canada, the United States and Thailand. On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak an international public health emergency. By now, the number of confirmed cases of the disease in China has exceeded 17,000, with more than 350 killed by this coronavirus. One lethal case was reported outside China, in the Philippines. Read more