Contain the virus, urges WHO DG to countries,

The epidemic peaked and plateaued between January 23 and February 2 and has been declining steadily since then, the World Health Organization (WHO)-China joint mission had found, the WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared this week.

Urging continued vigilance and stressing that this is not the time for complacency, he said that the mission had also found that there has been no significant change in the genetic makeup of the virus.

While the team had also estimated that the measures taken in China have averted a significant number of cases, Dr. Ghebreyesus said the key message that should give all countries hope, courage and confidence is that this virus can be contained.

“Indeed, there are many countries that have done exactly that. Fourteen that have had cases have not reported a case for more than a week, and even more importantly, 9 countries have not reported a case for more than two weeks: Belgium, Cambodia, Finland, India, Nepal, Philippines, the Russian Federation, Sri Lanka and Sweden. But that doesn’t mean that cases may not come back to these countries. But the cases that made it before have been contained,” he said.

Conceding that the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time on Tuesday, he has said that the sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Korea are “deeply concerning”.

“The increase in cases outside China has prompted some media and politicians to push for a pandemic to be declared. We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic without a careful and clear-minded analysis of the facts,” says Dr. Ghebreyesus, pointing out that the WHO has already declared a public health emergency of international concern – “our highest level of alarm”.

He adds: “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 paralysing systems. It may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true. We are in a fight that can be won if we do the right things. Of course, we will not hesitate to use the word pandemic if it is an accurate description of the situation.

“We are monitoring the evolution of the epidemic around the clock, 24/7 and are engaging experts internally and externally on this issue.

For the moment, we are not witnessing sustained and intensive community transmission of this virus and we are not witnessing large- scale severe disease or death. 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.

“Do not mistake me: I am not downplaying the seriousness of the situation, or the potential for this to become a pandemic, because it has that potential. Every scenario is still on the table. On the contrary, we are saying that this virus has pandemic potential and WHO is providing the tools for every country to prepare accordingly.

“The primary objective of all countries with cases must be to contain the virus. We should do the same: try to contain. At the same time, all countries, whether they have cases or not, must prepare for a potential pandemic. Every country needs to be ready to detect cases early, to isolate patients, trace contacts, provide quality clinical care, prevent hospital outbreaks, and prevent community transmission.

"There are three priorities: all countries must prioritize protecting health workers; we must engage communities to protect people who are most at risk of severe disease, particularly the elderly and people with underlying health conditions; and we must protect countries that are the most vulnerable, by doing our utmost to contain epidemics in countries with the capacity to do it."