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Add to Preferred SourcesAs COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, continues to spread, the head of the United Nations health agency said that there is still a chance to prevent a broader global crisis.
“Outside China, there are now 804 cases in 25 countries, with three deaths”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said, noting that in the past 24 hours, 110 new cases had been reported, including 99 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, on which thousands of people had been stuck under mandatory quarantine off the Japanese port city of Yokohama.
For more than a month, WHO has been supporting national authorities in other countries with cases, to track the virus and understand how people became infected.
So far, there are 92 cases in 12 countries of human-to-human transmission.
“At the moment”, he explained, “we don’t have enough data on cases outside China to make a meaningful comparison on the severity of disease or the case fatality rate”.
However, he continued, “we’re following up with countries to get more information about what happens about each case and the outcome”.
Mr. Ghebreyesus said that WHO has not yet seen a sustained local transmission, except in specific circumstances, like the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Original source: UN News
Published on 18 February 2020