Hajj Virus Threat Spurs WHO’s Chan to Call Emergency Meeting
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Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said she decided to convene the agency’s emergency committee for just the second time to help protect travelers to the annual Hajj pilgrimage against the coronavirus that’s killed 38 people in Saudi Arabia.
The 15-member committee, which includes Saudi Arabia’s deputy health minister Ziad Memish and health officials from six other predominantly Muslim countries, met via teleconference today to decide whether Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, represents a public health emergency of international concern. Chan last convened the committee to battle the 2009 global flu pandemic. The group plans to meet again on July 17.