Visiting Rome’s Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases on Sunday, Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said the discovery will be immediately made available to the entire international community in the interests of taking further measures against the outbreak and creating a vaccine.
“Having isolated the virus means that we’ll have many more opportunities to study it, to understand it and to better test what can be proved effective to contain its spread,” Speranza told reporters.
“All of our knowledge and the images of the isolated virus will be promptly shared with the international community.”
A former director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday praised the Chinese government, medical workers and scientists for their open, effective and transparent efforts in battling against the new virus epidemic.
The University of Macau has stepped up the development of a rapid test kit developed with patented technology.
The university said the whole virus detection process can now be completed within 30 minutes.
The death toll from coronavirus has now reached 350, with 14,637 confirmed cases – including two so far in Italy.
On Sunday, the Philippines reported the first death outside of China.
