Hong Kong praises China for efforts to control new coronavirus

Public health experts in Hong Kong said Tuesday that Chinese authorities have responded to the latest outbreak of a new coronavirus much more quickly this time around.

Gabriel Leung, dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, says the speed and extent of the response should severely limit the spread of the virus both within China and overseas.

"Our underlying assumptions are, the force of infection is very different now... because so many public health measures have been undertaken and so many interventions have been executed," he said.

Leung, who was deeply involved in the SARS response, said he felt a very strong sense of deja vu, except the timescale this time has been compressed.

Leung says modelling shows that the number of cases will continue to multiply over the coming weeks, but that the outbreak will gradually lose momentum as measures take effect.

"Keeping things open transparent and releasing it at the first possible moment. And that is what we're doing and I think that is in everybody's interest," said Leung, who is also the founding director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control.