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JERUSALEM, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese doctors who worked in Wuhan, central city of central China's Hubei Province, shared their experience of treating COVID-19 infections with Israeli doctors on Wednesday.

During a video conference, organized by China Global Television Network (CGTN), Chinese doctors spoke to their Israeli colleagues and answered questions about the virus and treatment.

"These meetings are very important, because they allow us to learn from the experience from China," said Nasreen Hassoun from the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, "We want to know how to treat patients from their experience. We wanted to learn more about clinical data."

"The most important thing we learned is to intervene in the beginning, to not get many severe cases. We learned from the Chinese experience that severe cases are very hard to treat. we still don't know the exact treatment and there have not been proper clinical trials," said Hassoun.

As of Wednesday, more than 5,500 cases have been reported in Israel with 26 deaths and 94 in critical condition . Israel was one of the first countries to impose travel bans when the virus broke out late last year. The country has been under a virtual lockdown in recent weeks since the virus begun to spread in the country in mid-March.

It has been of great public concern that the healthcare system will not be able to cope with a massive influx of intensive care patients. Among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, Israel ranks among the lowest in terms of the number of hospital beds per capita.

"The maximum we can do now, is to learn from other places," said Hassoun, "It's important to be open-minded."

The major challenge for physicians and scientists worldwide is significant as no one has dealt with the new virus before. The experience shared by the doctors in Wuhan on Wednesday is valuable to their Israeli counterparts.

"When we learn, we will be able to do better with the next wave of patients," she said.

"Nowadays when the world and information is so open and so transparent to everyone, it is very important to share your experience in order to help people all over the world and I think China has done this," said Haim Maayan from the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv.

"The data sent by Chinese physicians to medical journals was very important," Maayan told Xinhua.

The experience shared on Wednesday is very valuable to physicians. Hopefully such conferences will continue worldwide so everyone can benefit, according to Israeli experts attending the conference.