World Health Organization experts and a range of other scientists said on Monday there was no evidence to support an assertion by a high-profile Italian doctor that the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has been losing potency.
Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy, which bore the brunt of Italy's epidemic, on Sunday told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists."
But WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove and several other experts on viruses and infectious diseases, said Zangrillo's comments were not supported by scientific evidence.