The EU is preparing a joint response to the growing number of infected people in China

Italy has called for other EU members to follow its example and introduce testing of travelers from China, given Beijing's announcement that it will lift the ban on travel from the country on January 8, but this has not met with support from the rest of the Union.

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Detail from Shanghai, Photo: Reuters
Detail from Shanghai, Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

On Wednesday, health experts from the governments of the European Union (EU) will discuss a joint response to the increase in the number of people infected with the coronavirus in China, the spokeswoman for the Swedish EU presidency announced today.

As reported by Reuters, the previous discussions of health experts of EU governments, Union health agencies and representatives of the World Health Organization on the situation with the coronavirus in China, which were held on December 29, did not lead to a common conclusion.

Italy has called for other EU members to follow its example and introduce testing of travelers from China, given Beijing's announcement that it will lift the ban on travel from the country on January 8, but this has not met with support from the rest of the EU.

The European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, sent a letter to EU governments on December 29, recommending that they increase the scope of genomic sequencing of covid-19 infections.

The commissioner's second recommendation is that governments monitor the biological composition of drinking water, including at airports, in order to be able to detect possibly new strains of viruses that may arrive from China.

Kyriakides warned that the EU should be very careful due to the lack of reliable epidemiological data on the situation with the coronavirus and testing in China.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said last week that it does not currently recommend any special measures for travelers arriving from China.

According to the ECDC statement, the strains of the coronavirus circulating in China already exist in the EU, and a large percentage of EU citizens have been vaccinated, so there is no great potential for a new wave of infections from China.

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