World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP FILE PHOTO)
Geneva, Switzerland — The World Health Organization (WHO) has upgraded the international risk of the novel coronavirus spread to “very high.”
This developed as the number of people infected topped 83,000 in nearly 60 countries.
The UN health agency said Friday continued increase in cases and countries affected was “clearly of concern.”
“We have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at global level,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
The new virus, which consequent disease is now called COVID-19, emerged in China’s central city of Wuhan in Hubei province in late 2019. The death toll from the coronavirus in mainland China was at 2,788 as of Friday, February 28, 2020.