A team of novel coronavirus pneumonia experts from China and the World Health Organization visit a hospital in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province, Feb 23, 2020. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/chinadaily.com.cn]

China has always been open, transparent and responsible in responding to COVID-19, and Chinese authorities have promptly released relevant information, shared the anti-pandemic experience and promoted international cooperation, a top expert said on April 27.

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that China reported information to the World Health Organization regarding the outbreak and shared the gene sequences of the novel coronavirus with other countries in a timely manner.

China has also further strengthened international cooperation in the fight against the epidemic after the occurrence of the virus, Wu said.

Wu also listed part of the events in the timeline of China's immediate response to the outbreak.

The Municipal Health Commission of Wuhan, the capital city of hard-hit Central China's Hubei province, issued an urgent notification to order efforts to appropriately treat patients with pneumonia of unknown cause on Dec 30, after the province detected such cases in late December. One day later, the NHC sent a working group and an expert team to Wuhan to guide epidemic response and conduct on-site investigations,Wu said.

China has, since Jan 3, been informing the WHO, and relevant countries and regions, including the United States, about the pneumonia outbreak and response measures on a regular basis. On Jan 4, the head of the China CDC talked over phone with the director of the United States' CDC about the pneumonia outbreak and technological cooperation, Wu said.

A Chinese team of experts initially identified novel coronavirus as the cause of the viral pneumonia in Wuhan on Jan 9, then China informed the WHO of the findings and also shared the information with other countries immediately.

China also submitted to the WHO the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus on Jan 12, which was published by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data and shared globally.

"Countries around the world can produce diagnostic reagents according to this gene sequence, which is a great contribution to the world's control prevention of the virus," Wu said.

From Jan 20 to 21, a WHO delegation conducted a field visit to Wuhan. On Feb 16, a China-WHO joint expert team with 25 experts, including two from the US, started a nine-day field visit in China and inspected Beijing, Sichuan, Guangdong, and Hubei.

On March 29, the Chinese CDC and the US CDC held another video conference to share the progress in the anti-pandemic work.

"China's response to the outbreak has been open, transparent, timely and responsible. Countries around the world should respect the science and the facts, and work together to conquer the virus," Wu added.