Threat of pandemic is ‘very real’: WHO
Spanish cases double overnight; Germany reports its first two deaths; US cases cross 500
BEIJING/SEOUL/PARIS: The World Health Organisation warned on Monday there was now a “very real” threat that the global outbreak of the new deadly coronavirus will become a pandemic even as the number of cases worldwide crossed 110,000 people, but stressed the virus could still be controlled.
“The threat of a pandemic has become very real,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, while stressing that “it would be the first pandemic in history that can be controlled... we are not at the mercy of the virus.”
The number of cases of novel coronavirus worldwide has crossed 110,000 people in 100 countries and territories with more than 3,800 dead, according to an AFP tally on Monday.
Four countries account for 93% of the nearly 110,000 cases worldwide, Tedros said. “We are encouraged that Italy is taking aggressive measures to contain its epidemic and we hope that those measures prove effective in the coming days,” he added
The landmark figure came after Iran reported almost 600 new cases on Monday morning, taking its total number of infections past 7,000.
South Korea, which has one of the world’s largest coronavirus totals outside China, on Monday reported its smallest daily rise in cases for two weeks.
A total of 248 cases were confirmed on Sunday, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said. Each morning, the South announces how many cases were diagnosed the previous day, and gives an update every afternoon with the current day’s figures so far - 96 on Monday, taking the total to 7,478.
The 248 figure for Sunday as a whole was the third consecutive daily fall and was the lowest for any single day since late February. “The slowing trend should continue,” President Moon Jae In told aides, his office said in a statement, but warned: “We should not be complacent at all.”
EU EMERGENCY TALKS
European Union leaders will hold an emergency videoconference on Tuesday aimed at coordinating their response to the coronavirus outbreak, EU Council President Charles Michel announced.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Spain almost doubled overnight, with acute concentrations in the capital Madrid and the Basque country, an industrial hub.
The number of cases jumped to 999 on Monday from 589 on March 8, the health ministry said. Some 26 people have died as a result of the virus, ABC reported.
Two people died of the coronavirus in the western German city of Essen and virus hotspot Heinsberg, officials told AFP on Monday, the country’s first casualties of the outbreak.
US CASES CROSS 500
The number of confirmed US coronavirus cases soared past 500 Sunday, including two further deaths. The surge came as medics headed to a cruise ship off the California coast to prepare passengers for landfall.
Some 30 US states have been hit by the novel coronavirus, with Oregon the latest to declare an emergency, and 60 million people in California and New York under crisis measures.
Two more deaths linked to a virus-hit care home near Seattle were reported Sunday, bringing the nationwide toll to at least 21.
The coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China last year and causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness Covid-19, has killed more than 3,600 globally.