New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS): Amid continuous rise of coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday slammed the government for not taking the China virus threat seriously.

Taking to Twitter, he said, "The Coronavirus is an extremely serious threat to our people and economy. My sense is that the government is not taking this threat seriously.Timely action is critical."

Reacting to Gandhi's tweet, Union Minister Ashwini Choubey said, "It is extremely unfortunate that a big leader is doing politics over this issue. We have done our best for not only the people of our country but also neighborhood countries."

However, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Harsh Vardhan on Monday gave a detailed account in Parliament of the action taken by his ministry to stop and contain the novel coronavirus infection in India.

He also said that the government had also evacuated all the Indian students and other professionals working in Wuhan and neighboring cities in Hubei province.

Meanwhile, the virus which has posed to be a major challenge in China and research is underway to find a treatment for the deadly novel coronavirus, the World Health Organisation on Wednesday organised a forum in collaboration with the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness.

The forum expects outcomes that provide research roadmap with clearly defined priorities and governance framework addressing each of several thematic areas like virus, diagnostics, natural history and transmission, clinical, therapeutics, vaccines, ethics, regulatory science, animal health, data and samples analysis.