There are more than 400 delegates going to be here over today and tomorrow.

Their hope is to find a blueprint to answer some of the many, many unknowns about this virus.

But as you just said, there is one known.

Now they have finally today named it Covert 19.

That means Corona virus disease.

19 2019 for the year was discovered in December in Wuhan and who be province.

This is a brainstorming session and they don't happen very often.

We saw it with the Zika virus when that when there was an outbreak in Brazil, and we certainly saw it for Ebola in 2014.

What they want to do is put these fine brains together and try and find out a way of stopping the spread further.

Now you can see the flags behind me.

This is all about countries helping each other and helping China as well, not let it go further beyond the borders.

And there is now a W H.

O team who has just arrived in China earlier this week.

This is in many ways, the very essence of global collaboration.

Even the finest brains need feeding, so the tea break and between sessions on how to deal with the novel Corona virus.

There's a mix of canopies and case fatality ratios, a blend of the knowns and unknowns, and there are many unknowns.

But at the end of day, one message from the World Health Organization was uncompromising.

You know the world when it's when it talks about terrorism and imagine the level off preparation and zone is image.

To be honest, a virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack.

At the conference today, they gave the virus a name covert 19 Corona virus disease.

By tomorrow afternoon, there will be a blueprint mobilizing the response, putting together a research agenda, finding new drugs or even using older ones developed for other reasons.

I mean, it will be a constant learning, but I'm sure in two months we know more than we know.

Right now.

You also know that some off the anti rivals, so medicines are currently tested in China, and I'm hopeful that one of these medications may have an impact, which would be very interesting.

This is urgent.

Nearly 43,000 confirmed cases in China and now more than 1000 deaths, outstripping the fatalities from SARS and the early two thousands.

Yet within the desperation that is this epidemic, there is also valuable information because we already have 40,000 people who are being diagnosed.

So just doing an in depth study off those clusters, those families, those communities would already give us a lot of information about transmissions.

I think that's really a critical and a very important early question that we want to answer because that will inform the public health control efforts.

Outbreaks onboard cruise liners help provide more information.

The Diamond Princess has 135 confirmed cases so far.

In Hong Kong, residents were removed from an apartment block after two people living on entirely different floors tested positive for Covert 19.

And the U.

K businessman being treated in London, who appears to have passed the virus on to 11 people, is also of interest to the W H O.

Dealing with this disease is a marathon, not a sprint.

The situation will get worse before it gets better.

We will be guided by the science being, no doubt we will do everything that is effective to tackle this virus and keep people safe factors.

There are still only 393 cases outside China and 24 centers.

The epicenter remains Wu Han and the Hoob, a province in the center of China.

Despite building two highly publicized hospitals and opening beds and conference centers, they are running out of places to put the the medical staff are under.

The most intense pressure is the country battles to contain covert 19 from becoming a global pandemic.

Victoria Gold in Geneva.

Now, I should tell, is in Brighton, with more on the British businessmen thought to have passed the virus to at least 11 other people.

Well, yes, as the day's gone on, more and more has been revealed about Steve Awasthi, businessman and scout leader in hose that's been at the center of this now.

Earlier today, he sent a statement.

I'll just read a little bit out for you, he said.

I'd like to thank the N HS for their help in care.

Whilst I have fully recovered, my thoughts are with others who have contracted the Corona virus.

When the diagnosis was confirmed, I was sent to an isolation unit in hospital where I remained as a proportion.

My family was also asked to isolate themselves.

Now the big question here in Brighton, but also elsewhere as well have been.

Should this man has been identified earlier?

Now the World Health Organization said they were deeply, deeply unhappy that he was identified.

But a counselor I spoke to you here earlier said that more information a little bit earlier would have been helpful.

I don't think from Day one we got the full picture off, how quickly this can develop in time.

And we've certainly seen in in the five or six days that the story has broken, that the trickle of information is probably hindered rather than helped now.

Council leaders at a press conference earlier argued against that.

They said that they worried about stigma and also patient confidentiality.

I think one of the important things to emphasize here is about patient confidentiality, a swell so public health England's have been leading on this, so we've been taking and following their advice.

But I think it's absolutely irresponsible of anybody to reveal the names off patients in the media now, just a little bit more about the situation in Brighton that we've seen since we've been here.

Three GPS have been closed to them.

A set to reopen tomorrow.

They've been deep cleaned on.

Also to schools have had staff that have self isolated themselves so they haven't gone in.

But parents have been told that if there kids are off sick, then it won't be an unauthorized absence.

And just beyond brighten as well.

They've been to prisoners at HMP Bullingdon from oxygen.

They're being tested for the Corona virus on They've been isolated as a precaution, I should tell in Brighton.

Well, joining us now is Professor Stephen Riley.

He's at Imperial College, London and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modeling, which advises government on the U.

K's response to the Carla virus.

Professor, I'm wondering this far in can you track the dynamics of this thing?

And is it behaving roughly according to plan?

Um, it right now is is a difficult time.

We've observed ah, really sharp rise in cases in China and then a perhaps a little bit of a slowing down on these international cases, but we have not yet observed it taking off outside of China.

So we're seeing these sporadic small clusters, but they're not taking off, so we're very much at a wait and see kind of stage in terms of the global picture.

So this country is basically, at the moment, looking at super spreading only well, kind of a mass influx.

That's right.

So a cz concerning as these reports are for people, especially people living in Brighton and people associated with the cluster of the answers concerning as they are, this is a cluster that we can trace completely.

We know it goes back to a conference center in Singapore.

Andi.

We've traced all these contacts, the new cases, air appearing from the contacts that we found.

So it's concerning.

But we're we're still in the early stage if it's going to take off.

What is the danger that this virus, which after you've never seen before you may have seen it's like you've never seen it before will evolve into something much worse?

That's always possible.

Viruses change all the time.

If you're affected by flu, it's a little bit different than the strain that infected your child or your partner.

They change all the time.

The rare thing is a really substantial change that changes the properties of the virus, and they are actually quite rare.

It could happen.

But to be absolutely honest, as a scientist, we've got more important, difficult things to figure out, and that's kind of that's very it's very hard to get a handle on Mac anything now.

The health secretary was quite candid.

You said things will get worse before they get better.

What is worse mean And what do you think worse is?

Well, I think worse.

The moment means there are many cases in China and we're watching small clusters all over the world.

So here we would expect to see some small clusters of cases.

And then what we're worried about is the possibility that it starts to transmit here.

So I'm sure he means that we have to watch and wait and see on.

Look for the signs that it may take off, but we don't know for sure that it will you.

The world is a kind of system of wind and all the rest of it and the circulation of the girl globe itself.

Is that a factor?

And can you predict it through that we at the global scale we can kind of predict it, but it's people.

It's not the winds of the it's hide the travel long distances.

The virus has to get into one of us and get on a plane that way, kind of know that.

Is it certain that it will take a long as a year and 1/2 to find a vaccine?

Or could there be a breakthrough?

I'm sure breakthroughs possible, but it a year and 1/2 to get significant large stocks of a brand new vaccine would be an incredible achievement.

It's not.

It's not coming up with the actual vaccine itself.

Is testing validating manufacturing?

Professor Riley, thank you very much indeed for coming in.