WHO sees outbreak of new coronavirus as pandemic

The World Health Organization sees the outbreak of the new coronavirus as a pandemic, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

He told a news conference, “We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”

Coronavirus-WHO urges the world to prepare for ‘Pandemic’

Earlier, World Health Organisation urged that the world should struggle more to deal with possible coronavirus pandemic.

The WHO said the countries should be “in a phase of preparedness” although it was too early to declare the outbreak a pandemic.

An infectious disease is called pandemic when it spreads easily from person to person in several parts of the world.

There are many cases of Covid-19 in more than 25 countries outside China.

There are over 1,200 cases of coronavirus in 30 countries outside China. Twenty deaths have also been reported.

Apart from that, 2,600 people have died in China whereas 77,000 cases have been confirmed.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus informed to media on Monday that the number of patients in Iran, Italy and South Korea was “deeply concerning”.

He said, “For the moment we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus and we are not witnessing large scale severe disease or deaths.