WHO Declares Coronavirus Outbreak as Global Health Emergency

The World Health Organization (WHO) has now applies the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) status on the current outbreak of novel coronavirus. This declaration is only reserved for major health risks that the WHO deemed can be spread internationally and requires immediate coordinated action throughout the world.

The decision was made the Emergency Committee that WHO has formed to look into the outbreak. This is only the sixth time that PHEIC has been declared which puts novel coronavirus on par with the outbreak of H1N1 in 2009 as well Ebola in 2014 and Zika in 2015.

According to the WHO announcement, the Chinese government has reported that there are 7,711 confirmed and 12,167 suspected cases over there. Out of these cases, 1,370 cases have been deemed as severe and 170 people have died due to the coronavirus.

🚨BREAKING🚨

"For all of these reasons, I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of #2019nCoV."-@DrTedros

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 30, 2020

Outside of China, there are now apparently 83 cases in 18 other countries with 7 of them have never travel to China before and one severe case although no death has been reported. In addition to that, there already been human-to-human transmission cases in 3 countries outside of China.

However, WHO’s Emergency Committee stated that travel or trade restrictions is not yet necessary according to current information of the outbreak. It also believes that the virus spread can still be interrupted provided that immediate and strong measures are being taken by countries throughout the world.

(Source: WHO. Image: Getty Images via WHO.)

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