WHO pins hopes on ‘testing, tracing’

distancing measures are lifted,” he added. He said the test and trace strategy “must be the backbone of the response in every country”.

Tedros also said that to speed the search for potential therapies and drugs for Covid-19 infection, the WHO and its partners are organising a multi-country study to analyse and compare some as yet untested treatments.

“This large international study is designed to generate the robust data we need to show which treatments are the most effective,” Tedros said. “We have called this study the solidarity trial.” The WHO head also said the coronavirus was an “enemy against humanity”, as the number of people infected in the pandemic soared past 200,000.

“This coronavirus is presenting us with an unprecedented threat,” Tedros said, stressing that it was “an unprecedented opportunity to come together as one against a common enemy: an enemy against humanity”.

Tedros said the WHO was speaking daily with health ministers, heads of state, health workers, hospital managers, industry leaders and others “to help them prepare and prioritise”.

“Don’t assume your community won’t be affected. Prepare as if it will be,” he said.

The WHO has called for every single suspected case to be tested.

In countries where that was not possible due to soaring numbers of cases, Tedros insisted there were measures that could be taken to reduce the burden on healthcare systems and make epidemics more “manageable”.

“There is hope. There are many things all countries can do,” he said.

He urged states to introduce physical distancing measures, including cancelling sporting events, concerts and large gatherings, to slow down transmission. He added that the only way to suppress the outbreak was for countries to “isolate, test, treat and trace”.

LONDON/ LAUSANNE: Countries across the world must take a comprehensive approach to fighting the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus and isolate, test and trace as many cases as possible, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

“To suppress and control the epidemic, countries must isolate, test, treat and trace,” the WHO’S director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing.

“If they don’t, transmission chains can continue at a low level and then resurface once physical