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London/Milan, Jun 2: 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 COVID-19 epidemic, on Sunday told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists".

But WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, as well as several other experts on viruses and infectious diseases, said Zangrillo's comments were not supported by scientific evidence.

There is no data to show the new coronavirus is changing significantly, either in its form of transmission or in the severity of the disease it causes, they said.

"In terms of transmissibility, that has not changed, in terms of severity, that has not changed," Van Kerkhove told reporters.

It is not unusual for viruses to mutate and adapt as they spread, and the debate on Monday highlights how scientists are monitoring and tracking the new virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed more than 370,000 people and infected more than 6 million.

Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said major studies looking at genetic changes in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 did not support the idea that it was becoming less potent, or weakening in any way.

"With data from more than 35,000 whole virus genomes, there is currently no evidence that there is any significant difference relating to severity," he said in an emailed comment.

Zangrillo, well known in Italy as the personal doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said his comments were backed up by a study conducted by a fellow scientist, Massimo Clementi, which Zangrillo said would be published next week.

Zangrillo told Reuters: "We have never said that the virus has changed, we said that the interaction between the virus and the host has definitely changed."

He said this could be due either to different characteristics of the virus, which he said they had not yet identified, or different characteristics in those infected.

The study by Clementi, who is director of the microbiology and virology laboratory of San Raffaele, compared virus samples from COVID-19 patients at the Milan-based hospital in March with samples from patients with the disease in May.

"The result was unambiguous: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March compared to" those admitted last month, Zangrillo said.

Oscar MacLean, an expert at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research, said suggestions that the virus was weakening were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds."

Islamabad, May 7: Pakistan's COVID-19 cases have crossed 24,000 after 1,523 new infections were detected, while the death toll has jumped to 564 with 38 more people succumbing to the coronavirus, health officials said on Thursday.

Even as the country is seeing an increase in the number of coronavirus cases and fatalities, Prime Minister Imran Khan will discuss the easing of lockdown restrictions with his top aides on Thursday.

The Ministry of National Health Services said that out of the 24,073 total cases, Punjab reported 9,077, Sindh 8,640, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 3,712, Balochistan 1,495, Islamabad 521, Gilgit-Baltistan 388 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 76 cases.

After 38 more deaths on Wednesday, the total coronavirus patient death toll jumped to 564. Another 6,464 have recovered. A total of 1,523 new patients were added in a single day, the ministry.

So far, 244,778 tests have been conducted, including 12,196 in the last 24 hours, it said.

Prime Minister Khan will chair the National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting on easing the lockdown restrictions in the country. The meeting will be attended by all chief ministers.

The issue was debated in the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday and in the Cabinet on Tuesday.

Planning Minister Asad Umar said that different proposals to allow certain businesses to open were prepared and will be presented before the Prime Minister for a final decision.

Earlier, Khan, undeterred by the mounting number of deaths and the new cases, announced that he was against a lockdown as it hits the poor people badly.

Washington, Apr 8: President Donald Trump has threatened to put a "very powerful" hold on US' funding to the World Health Organization, accusing the UN agency of being "very China centric" and criticising it for having "missed the call" in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump slammed the global health agency for its early guidance aimed at countering the international spread of the coronavirus.

"We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We're going to put a very powerful hold on it and we're going to see. It's a great thing if it works. But when they call every shot wrong, that's no good," Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on Tuesday.

The Geneva-headquartered World Health Organization (WHO), receives vast amounts of money from the United States.

"We pay for a majority or the biggest portion of their money. They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. They were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early and they didn't want to - they're very - they seem to be very China centric," Trump said.

The president said his administration was going to look into the US funding to the WHO.

"We give a majority of the money that they get, and it's much more than the USD 58 million. USD 58 million is a small portion of what they've got over the years. Sometimes they get much more than that. Sometimes it's for programs that they're doing, and-it's much bigger numbers. If the programmes are good, that's great as far as we're concerned," he said.

"But we want to look into it, WHO, because they called it wrong. They (WHO) called it wrong. They missed the call. They could've called it months earlier. They would have known and they should have known and they probably did know. So, we'll be looking into that very carefully, and we're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Senator Jim Risch, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an independent investigation into the WHO's handling of the COVID-19 response.

"The WHO has failed not only the American people, it has failed the world with its flagrant mishandling of the response to COVID-19," said Risch.

WHO Director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' apparent unwillingness to hold the Chinese Communist Party to even the minimum standard of global health and transparency hindered the world's ability to blunt the spread of this pandemic, he said.

"It is completely unacceptable that the world's global health organization has become a political puppet of the Chinese government," he alleged, adding that "an independent investigation into the WHO's handling of the COVID-19 response is imperative."

The United States is the largest contributor to the WHO.

"Our valuable tax payer dollars should go towards investments to prevent the spread of disease, not to aid and abet cover-ups that cost lives and isolate portions of the world's population on political grounds, as has been the case with Taiwan," Senator Risch said.

A bipartisan group of nearly two dozen lawmakers announced Tuesday to introduce a resolution to defund the WHO until Ghebreyesus resigns and an international commission investigates the organisation's role in covering up the Chinese Communist Party's failed COVID-19 response.

"The WHO helped the Chinese Communist Party hide the threat of COVID-19 from the world and now more than 10,000 Americans are dead, a number that is expected to rise dramatically in the coming weeks," Congressman Guy Reschenthaler alleged.

"The United States is the largest contributor to WHO. It is not right that Americans' hard-earned tax dollars are being used to propagate China's lies and hide information that could have saved lives. This bill will hold the WHO accountable for their negligence and deceit," he asserted.

The United States' intelligence community has reported that the Chinese government hid the threat of COVID-19 and, as a result, made it difficult for the rest of the world to respond early, appropriately and aggressively, said Congressman Fred Keller.

"For reasons beyond understanding, the WHO acted as a silent partner in this effort instead of protecting the lives of millions across the world, including hundreds of thousands of American citizens. Our hard-earned tax dollars should not go to a global organization more concerned with not offending the Chinese government than providing accurate information and protecting innocent lives," Keller said.

Senator Marco Rubio accused the Chinese Communist Party of using WHO "to mislead the world."

"The organisation's leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent. I will work with the Trump Administration to ensure that WHO is independent and has not been compromised by the CCP before we continue our current funding, he added.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are over 1.43 million confirmed coronavirus cases across the world and over 82,000 people have died due to the disease. The US has nearly 400,000 infections, the highest in the world.