Coronavirus has now ‘peaked’ in China, according to the World Health Organisation which praised Beijing’s robust measures to insulate the outbreak.
While the number of cases continues to rise – surpassing 77,000 – the rate at which new infections are sprouting up has started decelerating.
But while officials firefighting the epidemic in China can take solace in the slow-down, other countries have been warned to brace for a ‘potential pandemic’ as the virus continues to spill out across the globe.
WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom said the peak in China occurred between January 23 and February 2, with the amount of fresh diagnoses ‘declining steadily since then’.
‘This virus can be contained,’ he told reporters in Geneva, praising China for helping to prevent an even bigger spread of the disease through unprecedented lockdowns and quarantines around the outbreak’s epicentre.
To quell the outbreak, Beijing has imposed drastic travel bans and quarantined entire cities – while also accused of scrubbing the internet of supposed scare stories.
But since coronavirus spawned in Wuhan late last year, it has spread to infect over 79,000 people globally and killing more than 2,600.
The highly contagious bug has manifested itself in every continent except South America and Antarctica.
An acceleration of cases in other parts of the world has prompted similar drastic action to prevent the spread.
Italy has locked down 11 towns and South Korea ordered the entire 2.5 million residents of the city of Daegu to remain indoors.
The spread of the disease – officially known as COVID-19 – continued unabated with Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait and Oman announcing their first cases on Monday.
Iran has reported 12 deaths, but Tehran MP Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani suggested the regime was suppressing the true figure.
Yet Dr Adhanom today refused to confirm the coronavirus crisis was yet to reach at pandemic levels.
After a spike in diagnoses, he said: ‘The sudden increase in new cases is certainly very concerning.
‘There is lots of speculation about whether this outbreak has now become a pandemic.
‘For the moment, we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus and we’re not witnessing large scale disease or deaths.’
His comments came after the WHO admitted the killer outbreak will never be officially declared a pandemic.
Instead, the UN-body said the crisis has already been a public health emergency of international concern – the highest warning level – for a month.
But fears of a pandemic are mounting, with a surge in cases taking the world close to the ‘tipping point’ with 80,000 confirmed cases and 2,600 deaths.
The body, headquartered in Geneva in Switzerland, argues a pathogen must spread easily between humans across the world before it is called a pandemic.
The WHO said the current crisis is a cluster of cases in 36 countries and territories, which can be traced back to Asia.
Leading scientists say most of the cases can be tracked back to China, where 97 per cent of cases of the pneumonia-causing virus have been recorded.
And a WHO spokesperson said it would start using the term pandemic in briefings if human-to-human transmission is sustained outside of Asia.
Discussing the spate of new COVID-19 cases across the world, Dr Tedros told the conference: ‘The sudden increase in new cases is certainly very concerning.
‘I’ve spoken consistently about the need for facts not fear. Using the word pandemic does not fit the facts but it may certainly cause fear.
‘This is not the time to focus on what word we use – that will not prevent a single infection today or save a single life today.
‘This is a time for all countries, communities, families and individuals to focus on preparing.’
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease specialist based at the University of East Anglia, warned the outbreak was moving closer to a pandemic.
He said: ‘The director general of the WHO has recently spoken of a narrowing of the window of opportunity to control the current epidemic.
‘The tipping point after which our ability to prevent a global pandemic ends seems a lot closer after the past 24 hours.’
Professor Mark Woolhouse, of University of Edinburgh, said: ‘A pandemic means an infectious disease is spreading out of control in different regions of the world.
‘We already have a COVID-19 epidemic in China and, more recently, large outbreaks in South Korea, Iran and Italy.
‘If those outbreaks cannot be brought under control, then I would expect the World Health Organisation to declare a pandemic.’
South Korea and Italy have seen sudden surges of hundreds of cases over recent days – members of a religious cult in Korea and people in a region around Milan have been infected.
And Iranian authorities are facing allegations of a cover-up after a local official claimed 50 people had died in the city of Qom.
The government’s figures show 12 people have died out of 64 infections, which indicates a much higher death rate (20 per cent) than in China, where there have been 2,593 deaths out of around 77,000 infections (three per cent).
Professor Woolhouse warned many different countries around the world may be sources of COVID-19 infections, putting the UK at risk of a spate of more cases.
Thirteen cases have already been recorded in the UK, with the latest four diagnosed after being evacuated from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise in Japan.
Professor David Heymann, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said terms such as pandemic are ‘distracting’.
He added: ‘Transmissibility in the community is not yet fully understood – what is necessary is to understand the current situation in each country.
‘It is for WHO to determine when the outbreaks should be called a pandemic and they will do this based on information from many different sources.’
But another expert, microbiologist Dr Simon Clarke, said no efforts seemed to be able to stop the virus in its tracks.
He added: ‘It seems that the virus can pass from person to person without symptoms, making it extremely difficult to track, regardless of what health authorities do.’
The WHO drew flak for declaring the 2009 swine flu outbreak a pandemic, which turned out to be mild and less deadly than feared.
It used to use a six-phase system for outbreaks, with phase six being a full-blown pandemic.
Critics said the WHO created panic about swine flu and caused governments to stockpile vaccines which went unused.
Some even questioned its links to the pharmaceutical industry, after firms such as GlaxoSmithKline profited from producing a H1N1 vaccine.
H1N1, which emerged in Mexico and the US, is thought to have killed up to 200,000 people in more than 200 countries.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told MailOnline that the body no longer uses the six-tier phasing system but added its advice ‘remains the same’.
He said: ‘We continue working with countries to limit the spread of the virus while also preparing for the possibility of wider spread.’
The WHO eventually declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on January 30.
It came as 213 people had died in China after contracting the virus. Less than 10,000 cases had been recorded when the declaration was made.
The WHO rejected making the coronavirus outbreak a PHEIC before its eventual U-turn. It is only the sixth time the term has been used.
The designation, still in place, was aimed at helping countries with weaker health systems shore up their defenses, especially in Africa.
Ripples are being felt around the world as a result of the outbreak’s impact on prodi
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