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| - Fifteen Polish doctors set off Monday on a mission to help Italian counterparts and to gain vital experience from tackling the novel coronavirus in Europe's worst-hit nation. "The mission has the aim of helping Italian doctors who are overwhelmed, giving them some rest," said Aleksandra Rutkowska of the Polish emergency medical aid organisation PCPM. "Also we want to gain experience in case we need it in Poland." "We want to look inside the beast before it appears in our country," added psychiatrist and paediatrician Pawel Szczucinski on the mission's Facebook page. "We will then be better prepared for the arrival of the epidemic." The doctors, working with Poland's military medical institute WIM on the operation, will spend 10 days in Brescia, at the heart of the badly affected Lombardy region of northern Italy. The spread of the coronavirus across Italy showed signs of slowing on Monday for the third consecutive day with the official number of deaths reaching 10,779, up 756 over the previous 24 hours, and the total number of infections at 97,689. Poland has recorded 1,984 cases and 26 fatalities. bo/via/bp/wdb
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