yes John there are more than 400
delegates going to be here over today
and tomorrow their hope has to find a
blueprint to answer some of the many
many unknowns about this virus but as
you just said there is one known now
they have finally today named at covert
19 that means coronavirus disease 19 20
19 for the year it was discovered in
December in Wuhan and who Bay province
this is a brainstorming session and they
don't happen very often we saw it with
the Zika virus when that were the when
there was an outbreak in Brazil and we
certainly saw it for Ebola in 2014 what
they want to do is put these fine brains
together and try and find out a way of
stopping the spread further now you can
see the flags behind me this is all
about countries helping each other and
helping China as well not let it go
further beyond the borders and there is
now a w-h-o team who has just arrived in
China earlier this week this is in many
ways the very essence of global
collaboration even the finest brains
need feeding so the tea break in between
sessions on how to deal with the novel
coronavirus there's a mix of canapes and
case fatality ratios a blend of the
knowns and unknowns and there are many
unknowns but at the end of day one the
message from the World Health
Organization was uncompromising you know
the world when it's when it talks about
terrorism and imagine the level of
preparation and so on is image to be
honest a virus is more powerful in
creating political economic and social
upheaval than any terrorist attack at
the conference today they gave the virus
a name covert 19 corona virus disease by
tomorrow afternoon there will be a
blueprint mobilizing the response
putting together a research agenda
finding new drugs or even using older
ones developed for other reasons
I mean it will be a constant learning
and but I'm sure in two months we know
more than we know right now you also
know that some of the antivirals so
medicines are currently tested in China
and I'm hopeful that one of these
medications may have an impact which
will be very interesting this is urgent
nearly 43,000 confirmed cases in China
and now more than 1000 deaths
outstripping the fatalities from SARS
and the early 2000s yet within the
desperation that is this epidemic there
is also valuable information because we
already have 40,000 people who are there
who have been diagnosed so just doing an
in-depth study of those clusters whose
families those communities would already
give us a lot of information about
transmission so I think that's really a
critical and a very important early
question that we want to answer because
that will inform the public health
control efforts outbreaks on port cruise
liners help provide more information the
diamond princess has a hundred and
thirty five confirmed cases so far in
Hong Kong residents were removed from an
apartment block after two people living
on entirely different floors tested
positive Cove at 19 and the UK
businessman being treated in London who
appears to have passed the virus onto
eleven people is also of interest to the
w-h-o dealing with this disease is a
marathon not a sprint
the situation will get worse before it
gets better we will be guided by the
science be in no doubt we will do
everything that is effective to tackle
this virus and keep people safe factors
there are still only 393 cases outside
China and 24 centers the epicenter
remains Wuhan and the who Bay Province
in the center of China despite building
two highly publicized hospitals and
opening beds and conference centers they
are running out of places to put the
second one the medical staff are under
the most intense pressure as the country
battles to contain covert 19 from
becoming a global pandemic
Victoria McDowell in Geneva now I should
tell is in Brighton with more on the
British businessman thought to have
passed the virus to at least 11 other
people
Asia well yes as the days gone on more
and more has been revealed about Steve
Walsh the businessman and Scout leader
in hose that's been at the center of
this now earlier today he sent a
statement I'll just read a little bit
out for you he said I'd like to thank
the NHS for their help and care whilst I
have fully recovered my thoughts are
with others who have contracted the
corona virus when the diagnosis was
confirmed I was sent to an isolation
unit in hospital where I remain as a
proportion my family was also asked to
isolate themselves now the big question
here in Brighton but also elsewhere as
well has been should this man have been
identified earlier now the World Health
Organization said they were deeply
deeply unhappy that he was identified
but it counts a lot I spoke to you here
earlier said that more information a
little bit earlier would have been
helpful I don't think from day one we
got the full picture of how quickly this
can develop in time and we're certainly
seen in in the five or six days that the
story has broken that the trickle of
information is probably hindered rather
than helped now council leaders at a
press conference earlier argued against
that they said that they worried about
stigma and also patient confidentiality
I think one of the important things to
emphasize here is about patient
confidentiality as well so Public Health
England's have been leading on this so
we've been taking and following their
advice but I think it's absolutely
irresponsible of anybody to reveal the
names of patients in the media now just
a little bit more about the situation in
Brighton that we've seen since we've
been here
three gPS have been closed two of them
are set to reopen tomorrow and they've
been deep cleaned and also two schools
have had staff that have self isolated
themselves so they haven't gone in but
parents
been told that if their kids are off
sick then it won't be an unauthorized
absence and just beyond Brighton as well
they've been to prisoners at HMP
Bullingdon
from Oxfordshire they're being tested
for the corona virus and they've been
isolated as a precaution
I start out in Brighton well joining us
now is Professor Steven Riley he's at
Imperial College London and a member of
the scientific pandemic influenza group
on modeling which advises government on
the UK's response to the coroner virus
and professor I'm wondering this far in
can you track the dynamics of this thing
and is it
behaving roughly according to plan right
now is is a difficult time we've
observed a really sharp rise in cases in
China and then a perhaps a little bit of
a slowing down and these international
cases but we've not yet observed it
taking off outside of China so we're
seeing these sporadic small clusters but
they're not taking off so we're very
much at a wait-and-see kind of stage in
terms of the global picture so this
country is basically at the moment
looking at super spreading only well
kind of a mass influx that's right so as
as concerning as these reports are for
people especially people living in
Brighton and people associated with with
the clustering ounces concerning as they
are this is a cluster that we can trace
completely we know it goes back to a
conference centre in Singapore and we've
traced all these contacts the new cases
are appearing from contacts that we
found so it's concerning but we're we're
still at that early stage if it's going
to take off there what is the danger
that this virus which after all you've
never seen before you may have seen it's
like but you've never seen it before
will evolve into something much worse
and that's always possible viruses
change all the time if you're affected
by flu it's a little bit different than
the strain that infected your child or
your partner they change all the time
the rare thing is a really substantial
change that changes the properties of
the virus and they are actually quite
rare it could happen but to be
absolutely honest as a scientist we
we've got more important difficult
things to figure out and that's kind of
that's very it's very hard to get a
handle on that kind of thing now the
health secretary was quite candid you
said things will get worse before they
get better
what does worse mean and what do you
think worse is well I think worse the
moment means there are many cases in
China and we're watching small clusters
all over the world so here we would
expect to see some small clusters of
cases and then what we're worried about
is the possibility that it starts to
transmit here so I'm sure he means that
we have to watch and wait and see and
look for these signs that it may take
off but we don't know for sure that it
will yet the world is a kind of system
of winds and all the rest of it and the
circulation of the globe itself is that
a factor and can you predict it through
that it we at the global scale we can
kind of predict it but it's people it's
it's not the winds or the tides the to
travel long distances the virus has to
get into one of us and get on a plane
but we kind of know that is it certain
that it will take as long as a year and
a half to find a vaccine or could the be
a breakthrough
I'm sure breakthroughs possible but it a
year and a half to get significant large
stocks of a brand-new vaccine would be
an incredible achievement
it's not the it's not coming up with the
actual vaccine itself it's testing
validating manufacturing professor Riley
thank you very much indeed for coming in