Health ministers from the Group of 20 major economies held a virtual meeting on Sunday to work on a joint response to the coronavirus pandemic and will issue a statement, Reuters quoted the G20 as saying.

It said a planned virtual news conference was cancelled as the health minister of Saudi Arabia, the current G20 chair, had to attend “an urgent Covid-19 KSA (Saudi) task force meeting”.

Saudi Health Minister Tawfiq al-Rabiah had delivered the opening remarks of the meeting, according to a video provided to media.

In his speech, Rabiah referred to a G20 health working group meeting on Saturday, saying “we acknowledge that there are a few areas of debate and we are happy to address them in future health working groups,” but he did not elaborate.