BEIJING: More than 25,000 doctors from all parts of China have arrived in the province of Hubei to help their colleagues fight the outbreak of COVID-19, Sputnik news agency reported Deputy Director of the National Health Commission Wang Hesheng as saying.
“At the moment, 217 medical teams with 25,633 doctors have been sent to the province of Hubei to provide medical assistance. The figure does not include military doctors, who have been sent by the army,” Wang said.
The largest number of medical teams — 181 ones with 20,374 doctors — has been sent to the city of Wuhan, which is the epicentre of the epidemic.
The new strain of coronavirus — COVID-19 — was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, located in the province of Hubei, in December and has since spread to more than 25 countries.
In mainland China, the virus has already resulted in 1,523 fatalities, with 66,492 people having been infected. Over 1,700 doctors have been infected with COVID-19, six of them have died.
In late January, the World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency in light of the outbreak. – Bernama
