COVID-19 epidemic can be pushed back with concerted approach -WHO

The epidemic of COVID-19 coronavirus infection spreading around the world from China can be contained and controlled, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, but only with a concerted response by all the world's governments. "We are calling on every country to act with speed, scale and clear-minded determination," the WHO's director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a briefing at the U.N. health agency's Geneva headquarters.

Tedros voiced concern that "some countries have either not taken this seriously enough, or have decided there is nothing they can do". He added: "This is not the time to give up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops."