For the first time, the number of coronavirus cases outside China has outpaced those inside the country, where it originated with most probable transmission happening from wild animal food to humans.
The World Health Organization, a UN global health agency, complains that several countries are not sharing data with it, hampering its work to issue advice to deal with the disease.
“The sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Korea are deeply concerning”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says.
There are now cases linked to Iran in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait and Oman and to Italy in Algeria, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. Pakistan has also reported its first two cases and sealed its border with Iran, where the virus has caused several deaths.
Still, officials say the spread is not of pandemic proportions and warned against unnecessary hype.
China has fewer than 80,000 cases in a population of 1.4 billion people. In the rest of the world, there are 2,790 cases, in a population of 6.3 billion, WHO says.
As of Wednesday, China had reported 78,190 cases to WHO, including 2,718 deaths and reported only 10 new cases outside of Hubei province.
A WHO-China joint mission assessing the rapidly evolving epidemic reveals a range of findings about the transmissibility of the virus, the severity of disease and the impact of the measures taken.
In the United States, President Trump has reassured Americans that the country is ready and equipped to deal with a wider outbreak while saying his administration has already taken key steps to stop the spread of the disease named as COVID-19.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 27, 2020
Trump has tasked Vice President Mike Pence to oversee efforts to keep the Americans safe. An American, who had not traveled to any of the affected countries has been reported to have contracted coronavirus in Los Angeles, spiking concern among officials and Americans across the country.
“Yesterday, a joint team between WHO and the European Centerfor Disease Prevention and Control arrived in Rome to review the public health measures that have been put in place and provide technical support”, Tedros, the WHO chief, informed, saying that over the weekend a WHO team will travel to Iran to provide support.
The greatest impediment in the way of an effective response to coronavirus spread is that too many affected countries are still not sharing data with WHO.
“WHO cannot provide appropriate public health guidance without disaggregated data and detailed line lists”, Tedros said. “We’re communicating with ministers directly, there is some improvement, and we urge all countries to share this data with WHO immediately”.
The health agency has still not declared coronavirus spread a pandemic.
“We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic without a careful and clear-minded analysis of the facts”, he maintained, reminding that WHO has already declared it highest level of alarm: a public health emergency of international concern.
“Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems”, he said. “It may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true”.
The head of WHO maintained that the fight can be won “if we do the right things”.
“Do not mistake me”, he said, “I am not downplaying the seriousness of the situation, or the potential for this to become a pandemic…every scenario is still on the table”.
The WHO chief said: “The primary objective of all countries with cases must be to contain the virus”, and “all countries, whether they have cases or not, must prepare for a potential pandemic”.
