Workers make masks at a workshop of a medical material producing company in Jiaozuo City, central China's Henan province, Feb 9, 2020. (FENG XIAOMIN / XINHUA)

BEIJING - An advance team of international experts led by the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for Beijing to help investigate the novel coronavirus epidemic.

I’ve just been at the airport seeing off members of an advance team for the @WHO-led #2019nCoV international expert mission to #China, led by Dr Bruce Aylward, veteran of past public health emergencies.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, tweeted

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.

“I’ve just been at the airport seeing off members of an advance team for the @WHO-led #2019nCoV international expert mission to #China, led by Dr Bruce Aylward, veteran of past public health emergencies,” Tedros said in a tweet from Geneva on Sunday.

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He called on countries to step up efforts to prepare for the coronavirus’s possible arrival. Donors have contributed toward the WHO’s efforts and those directed at vulnerable countries, he said, but the organization hasn’t reached its goal of US$675 million to fight the coronavirus. 

The WHO declared the outbreak a global emergency on Jan 30, days after the Chinese central government imposed a lockdown on 60 million people in Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, epicenter of the virus that emerged in December in a seafood market.

The death toll from the outbreak on the Chinese mainland rose by 97 to 908 as of the end of Sunday, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday.

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There were 3,062 new confirmed infections on Sunday, bringing the total number so far to 40,171, the NHC said.

A total of 3,281 people had been discharged from hospital after recovery.

With inputs from agencies