The World Health Organization (WHO) has on Wednesday the 11th of March declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, according to new updates reaching OYOGist.com.
While at the meeting where the declaration was made, the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply concerned by the “alarming levels of inaction” over the virus.
Dr. Tedros said the number of covid19 cases that have been recorded outside of China had increased by 13-fold within the past two weeks alone.
According to the BBC, “A pandemic is a disease that is spreading in multiple countries around the world at the same time.”
Dr Tedros clarified, however, that calling the outbreak a pandemic would prevent the world health organization from maintaining its advice towards tackling the pandemic.
The WHO had maintained that countries should follow a containment approach towards fighting the coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Dr Tedros urged the governments of the countries to change the course of the COVID-19 outbreak by taking “urgent and aggressive action.”
“Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled,” Tedros said.
“The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same – it’s whether they will.”
See an update of the coronavirus events in a WHO timeline below:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen
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