World in ‘uncharted territory’ on coronavirus outbreak

The world is in "uncharted territory" on the coronavirus outbreak, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

In a news conference, Tedros Adhanom said the world has never seen a respiratory organism that causes disease capable of "community transmission."

He, however, said the coronavirus, formally known as COVID-19, can be contained with the right measures.

"We are in uncharted territory. We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures," Tedros said.

"If this was an influenza epidemic, we would have expected to see widespread community transmission across the globe by now, and efforts to slow it down or contain it would not be feasible," he added.

He explained that China reported 206 cases of COVID-19 to WHO on Sunday, the lowest since Jan. 22. Only eight cases were reported outside Hubei province, where the respiratory disease was first detected.

In another development from the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG), President of the Human Rights Council Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger said all side events related to the council from March 3 to 20 would be canceled.

Tedros said that outside China, a total of 8,739 cases of COVID-19 had been reported to WHO from 61 countries, with 127 deaths.

"In the last 24 hours, there were almost nine times more cases reported outside China than inside China," he said.

The epidemic in South Korea, Italy, Iran, and Japan is of most significant concern to the WHO.

Tedros said that a WHO staff member in its Iran country office had tested positive for COVID-19, and he had an instance of "mild disease."

More than 130 countries had not detected any cases, and some only received their first cases on Sunday.

"Some have clusters of cases, with transmission between family members and other close contacts," said the WHO head.

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO executive director of the Emergencies Program, said at the news conference: "No matter what country you are in this disease will stretch your health system."