Washinton: The coronavirus pandemic is “easily the most severe” health emergency the World Health Organization has ever faced and it is continuing to accelerate, the U.N. body’s head said Monday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO, said during a media briefing on COVID-19 that Thursday will mark six months since he declared the coronavirus pandemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the highest level of alarm he can issue under international law.
When he made the announcement on Jan. 30, there were fewer than 100 cases outside of China, where the virus first emerged in early December, but the virus has since spread across the globe infecting more than 16 million people of whom some 650,000 have died, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
Tedros said that in the past six weeks, the number of infections has roughly doubled.
“This is the sixth time a global health emergency has been declared under the International Health Regulations, but it is easily the most severe,” he said.
To suppress the virus governments need to find, isolate, test and care for cases and trace and quarantine their contacts while the public needs to clean their hands, avoid crowded and enclosed areas and wear a mask.
