G 7 countries will discuss a joint response to the coronavirus epidemic, Germany's health minister said on Sunday. Jens Spahn said he had talked on the phone with his US counterpart and “we agreed that there should be a conference call, a discussion by G7 health ministers about this question with the aim of dealing with it together”.
China reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu at a farm in Shaoyang city of the southern province of Hunan, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Sunday.
Beijing on Friday sharply criticized the United States for warning American citizens to avoid China and for urging those already there to leave due to the coronavirus health emergency.
Facebook said it will take down misinformation about China's fast-spreading coronavirus in a rare departure from its approach to health content, after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency.
The U.S. government warned Americans not to travel to China as the death toll from a new coronavirus reached 213 on Friday and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency.
Brazil’s largest meatpackers JBS SA and BRF SA said that the coronavirus outbreak could help boost Chinese demand for their products, as it fans concerns about domestic food safety in China. However some also believe sales could be held back by aggressive demands for discounts from Chinese buyers.
A Mandarin speaking trade specialist has been appointed by the Brazilian Agriculture ministry to boost exports to China, the world’s largest commodities market. Larissa Wachholz, 36, who holds a masters degree from the Renmin University of China, was tapped in December by the Brazilian agriculture ministry to lead a trade unit dedicated to the Asian country, the first of its kind in Brazil.
By Gwynne Dyer – In an emergency, the good thing about a dictatorship is it can respond very fast. The bad thing is it won’t respond at all until the dictator-in-chief says it should. All the little dictators who flourish in this sort of system won’t risk their positions by passing bad news up the line until the risk of being blamed for delay outweighs the risk of being blamed for the emergency in the first place.
Cruise line operators have canceled cruises to China after the outbreak of the coronavirus in China. The new virus that first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December has so far killed over 100 people and infected approximately 6,000 others.
President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that China was sure of defeating a devil coronavirus that has killed at least 106 people, but the international alarm was rising as the outbreak spread across the world.