An advance team of World Health Organization (WHO) experts has left for Beijing to investigate China's coronavirus epidemic, the Geneva-based agency said on Sunday.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who made a trip to Beijing for talks with President Xi Jinping and Chinese ministers in late January, returned with an agreement on sending an international mission.
But it has taken nearly two weeks to get the government's green light on its composition.
"I've just been at the airport seeing off members of an advance team for the WHO-led coronavirus international expert mission to China, led by Dr. Bruce Aylward, a veteran of past public health emergencies," Tedros said in a tweet in Geneva.