Geneva: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) urged all countries on Thursday to “double down” in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. TedrosAdhanomGhebreyesus, speaking to diplomats in Geneva a day after characterizing COVID-19 as a pandemic, also said: “Describing this as a pandemic does not mean that countries
should give up. The idea that countries should shift from containment to mitigation is wrong and dangerous.” He said that, while maintaining a containment strategy, all countries must “strike a fine balance between protecting health, preventing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights”, according to remarks made available by the agency.
Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a clarion call to governments around the world to urgently scale up their response to the novel coronavirus if they are to stand a chance of stemming its spread.
“Today’s declaration of a pandemic is a call to action – for everyone, everywhere,” the secretary general said in a statement on Wednesday evening soon after the world Health Organization (WHO) announced that the global emergency can now be described as a pandemic.
“We can still change the course of this pandemic but that means addressing inaction,” he said. “I call on every government to step up and scale up their efforts–now.”
Latest data indicates more than 118,000 cases of infection in 114 countries, and 4,291 deaths–a 13-fold increase outside China in the past two weeks, and a threefold rise in the number of affected countries.
“The best science tells us, if countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize their people in the response, we can go a long way to mitigating transmission,” the UN chief said.
His appeal echoed an earlier one by WHO Director-General Director-GeneralTedrosAdhanomGhebreyesus, which officially labelled the outbreak a pandemic on Wednesday and blamed its spread and severity on “alarming levels of inaction”. The declaration of a pandemic, Guterres said, was “also a call for responsibility and solidarity as nations united and as people united.”
“As we fight the virus, we cannot let fear go viral.”
