The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that the coronavirus outbreak has now spread to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The vast majority of cases continue to be declared in China, with more than 6,000 confirmed, 68 of them outside of the country.
WHO announced that four members of a family from Wuhan, who had travelled to the UAE earlier in January, were hospitalized on 25 and 27 January after testing positive for coronavirus. The virus has now spread to 15 countries: the cases in UAE mark the first time that a nation in the Eastern Mediterranean Region has been affected.
The Director-General of WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, confirmed that 68 cases of novel coronavirus have been confirmed outside of China. While this represents only one percent of the total, the geographic spread is wide, with patients diagnosed in North America, Europe and Australia, as well as several countries in Southeast Asia.
At a press briefing in Geneva on January 29, Michael Ryan, the head of the WHO health emergencies programme, said that “the whole world needs to be on alert now.”
The actions of the Chinese authorities have, he said, helped to slow the international spread of the virus, but it has not been halted:
“The continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China are of course most deeply concerning. Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak”.
On January 29, WHO announced that 1,239 of the confirmed cases in China are severe, and there have been 132 deaths attributed to the virus so far. There are now 9,239 suspected cases in the country. The WHO risk assessment for China is “very high”, whilst the regional and global assessment remains “high”.
Containment measures in Wuhan will be improved, said WHO, and public health measures in other Chinese cities and regions are being strengthened. WHO and Chinese authorities pledged to continue sharing data, and China will share biological material with WHO, with the aim of developing effective vaccines and treatments against the new virus strain.
The WHO chief announced that the agency’s Emergency Committee will meet, for a second time, on January 30, to decide whether or not the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
Original source: UN News
Published on 29 January 2020