Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page A2

February 12, 2020

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home 禄 World

WHO warns of 鈥榲ery grave鈥 global threat

Source: Agencies | 00:49 UTC+8 February 12, 2020 | Print Edition

THE coronavirus outbreak poses a “very grave threat for the rest of the world”, the head of the World Health Organization said yesterday in an appeal for sharing virus samples and speeding up research into drugs and vaccines.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was addressing the start of a two-day meeting aimed at accelerating development of drugs, diagnostics and vaccines against the flu-like virus amid growing concerns about its ability to spread.

To date China has reported 42,708 confirmed cases, including 1,017 deaths, Tedros said.

“With 99 percent of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country, but one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world,” he told more than 400 researchers and national authorities.

Tedros, speaking to reporters on Monday, referred to “some concerning instances of onward transmission from people with no travel history to China,” citing cases this week in France and Britain.

Five British nationals were diagnosed with the coronavirus in France, after staying in the same ski chalet with a person who had been in Singapore.

“The detection of this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire. But for now it’s only a spark. Our objective remains containment.”

WHO also officially name the latest novel coronavirus as Covid-19, which stands for coronavirus disease starting in 2019.According to the WHO, the naming of the virus should avoid any stigmatizing.

Many questions remain about the origin of the virus, which emerged at a wildlife market in China’s Wuhan in December, and is spread by people in droplets from coughing or sneezing.

“We hope that one of the outcomes of this meeting will be an agreed roadmap for research around which researchers and donors will align,” Tedros told the closed-door meeting in Geneva, according to remarks made available by the UN agency.

“The bottom line is solidarity, solidarity, solidarity. That is especially true in relation to sharing of samples and sequences,” Tedros said. “To defeat this outbreak, we need open and equitable sharing, according to the principles of fairness and equity.”

Dr Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergencies experts, said on Monday: “This is an amazing initiative to centralize our knowledge.”

The aim was to identify gaps and generate scientific information for urgently needed medical interventions, he told reporters.

World
锘

 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend


锘