Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), on Saturday dismissed a media report claiming that a super-spreader, or a highly contagious virus carrier, had emerged in the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Gao, a leading virologist and immunologist and member of a National Health Commission high-level expert team, said a patient who supposedly infected 14 medical staff in a Wuhan hospital should not be named a "super-spreader" because he was transferred between wards multiple times.
"There is no need for panic," Gao said.
Other preventive medicine experts interviewed by Xinhua echoed Gao's view.
Gao said at an earlier press conference that there was no evidence so far of a super-spreader.
The new coronavirus pneumonia first broke out in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and then quickly spread across the country. By the end of Friday, a total of 41 people had died and 1,287 cases had been confirmed in 30 provincial-level regions.
"We are closely following the situation. What we must focus on right now is to carry out prevention and treatment in line with science," Gao said.
