The ongoing coronavirus outbreak is a global health emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) determined yesterday. Since it started last month, the virus’s spread has reached nearly two dozen countries, sickened thousands, and impacted both travel and business around the world.
“The main reason is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom at a press conference on January 30. “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to other countries with weaker health systems, which are ill prepared to deal with it.”
The WHO defines a global emergency — formally, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern — as “an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.”
This is the sixth international emergency declared over past decade. WHO experts met on January 29 to evaluate whether the new coronavirus outbreak constitutes an international emergency.
Only five such emergencies have been declared in the past decade: the H1 virus that caused an influenza pandemic (2009), West Africa’s Ebola outbreak (2013-2016), polio (2014), Zika virus (2016), and the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2019).
Meanwhile, NBC News reports coronavirus cases have been documented in 18 countries beyond China. The United States yesterday advised citizens to not travel to China.
According to the BBC, at least 213 people have died in China, with almost 10,000 cases of the virus.
The WHO said there had been 98 cases in 18 other countries, but no deaths.
