WHO notes COVID-19 pandemic potential as five more nations affected
Five more countries in the Middle East reported their first COVID-19 cases, all linked to Iran travel, signaling an escalating situation in the region in the wake of Iran's outbreak, as World Health Organization (WHO) officials announced though the global situation isn't yet a pandemic, the world should prepare for one.
Elsewhere, the pace of newly reported cases continued to surge in South Korea and Italy, though cases are declining in China, where a WHO-led international joint mission wrapped up its visit and shared its initial findings.
At a media telebriefing in Geneva, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said the team learned more about the transmissibility of the virus, its severity and the measures China took. He said the decline in China's cases is real, and that the epidemic peaked and plateaued between January 23 and February 2 and has been steadily declining since then.
He said the group found that the fatality rate ranges from 2 percent to 4 percent in Wuhan but is lower at 0.7 percent outside of the city. For people with mild disease, recovery takes about two weeks, but patients who experience severe or critical disease it may take three to six weeks to recover.
The group concluded that China's strict measures averted a significant number of cases, Tedros said, adding that the team highlights remaining unanswered questions and makes 22 recommendations. He said joint mission leader Bruce Aylward, MD, MPH, will brief reporters on more details.
Addressing speculation on whether the recent escalating events constitute a pandemic, Tedros said health officials are still gauging the geographic spread, disease severity and COVID-19's impact on societies. "For the moment, we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus, and we are not witnessing large-scale disease or death," he said.
Though the sudden surges in in some parts of the world are concerning, the word "pandemic" doesn't fit the facts and may raise fears, he said. Rather, he said as the WHO continuously monitors the epidemic, countries must make their own risk assessments, with an eye toward prioritizing three things: protecting healthcare workers, protecting people most at risk (older people and those with chronic health conditions) and protecting countries with weaker health systems.
Mike Ryan, MD, who directs the WHO's health emergencies program, said making the pandemic call for flu would be an easier call, since health officials know what to expect with the spread. However, he added that experts still don't understand all the dynamics related to COVID-19. He added that the world is in a phase of preparing for a potential pandemic.
