Coronavirus: World must prepare for pandemic, says WHO
Source: BBC
Coronavirus: World must prepare for pandemic, says WHO
24 February 2020
The World Health Organization has said the world should do more to prepare for a possible coronavirus pandemic.
The WHO said it was too early to call the outbreak a pandemic but countries should be "in a phase of preparedness".
A pandemic is when an infectious disease spreads easily from person to person in many parts of the world.
More cases of the virus, which causes respiratory disease Covid-19, continue to emerge, with outbreaks in South Korea, Italy and Iran causing concern.
However, most infections are in China, the original source of the virus, where 77,000 people have the disease and nearly 2,600 have died. The number of new cases there is now falling.
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Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51611422
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Source:
The Guardian
Coronavirus outbreak a pandemic 'in all but name', says expert
While WHO says virus still containable, sudden cases in Iran and Italy causing alarm
Sarah Boseley Health editor
Mon 24 Feb 2020 18.43 GMT
Last modified on Mon 24 Feb 2020 22.52 GMT
The World Health Organization has played down fears of a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, despite sudden serious outbreaks in Italy and Iran, but some experts said they believed it was now inevitable.
Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear, said the WHOs director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a briefing.
We are not there yet, said Tedros. What we see are epidemics in different parts of the world affecting different countries in different ways.
The word pandemic is used to describe a serious disease that is spreading in an uncontrolled way around the world. China, he pointed out, appeared to have contained it. The international team sent in by the WHO, which is about to report its findings, has said the virus probably peaked between 23 January and 2 February.
Tedros added, however, that the sudden increase in new cases is certainly very concerning.
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Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic-in-all-but-name-says-expert