WHO: Europe is epicentre of virus pandemic

GENEVA - Europe has now become the epicentre of a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed 5000 lives around the world, “a tragic milestone”, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

More than 132,000 cases of the virus have been reported in 123 countries since it emerged in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference.

“Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of world combined apart from China,” he said in Geneva.

Mr Tedros announced that the WHO was launching a coronavirus Solidarity Response Fund. This would to allow people and organisations to contribute to help fund masks, gloves, gowns and goggles for health workers, as well as diagnostic kits and investment in research and development, including for vaccines.

Facebook will match up to $10 million in donations, while Alphabet Inc’s Google will contribute $5 million, the WHO and UN Foundation later announced in a joint statement.

Social distancing, where people avoid close proximity or touching, is a “tried and tested method” to slow the spread of a virus but “not a panacea” that will stop transmission, the WHO’s top emergency expert Dr Mike Ryan said.

Picture: REUTERS People wear protective masks as they shop at a market, on the fourth day of an unprecedented lockdown across of all Italy imposed to slow the outbreak of coronavirus, in Naples, Italy.