The coronavirus epidemic accelerated across the globe Monday, the WHO raising the risk of a "pandemic", against the backdrop of tumbling financial markets worried about the world economy. "We need to focus on containment (of the new coronavirus epidemic, editor's note ), while doing everything we can to prepare for a possible pandemic," said the director general of the World Health Organization ( WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
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The WHO has in particular judged "very worrying (...) the sudden increase" of new cases in Italy, South Korea and Iran. However, it has observed a decline in China, the country of origin of the disease, since the beginning of February. In Europe, Italy, which now has seven dead, has become the first country on the continent to set up a health cordon around ten cities in the North. Two months after the appearance of the new coronavirus, five countries have announced the first cases of contamination: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and Oman. Bahrain has suspended flights from two UAE airports, and Oman has suspended flights to Iran.
Iran cut off from its neighbors
Less than a week after the detection of the new coronavirus, Tehran announced four new deaths, bringing the number of victims of the epidemic in the Islamic Republic to 12, where a WHO mission is expected. With 64 people infected in Iran, this death rate of one in five seems much higher than that observed so far in China (around 3%). Worried about the contagion in Iran, Armenia, Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan have closed their border or have restricted trade with this country. At least 200 people have been quarantined in Pakistan, on the Iranian border.
In total, more than thirty countries are now affected, with a toll that far exceeds 30 deaths outside of China, which has experienced 2,663 deaths on its soil.
A real-time map to see the evolution of the coronavirus
Developed by researchers at the Johns-Hopkins University in the United States, a map lists all the confirmed cases of Covid-19 around the world, as well as those suspected, in real time. But it is also accompanied by several counters which provide information on the number of victims ... and people healed.
After a peak of 231 new infections announced on Monday, South Korea has experienced a decline, with 60 new cases listed Tuesday morning. The world's second largest outbreak behind China, South Korea now has 893 infected patients, eight of whom are fatal. In Italy, in addition to the cordon cordon established around 11 cities in the north, the famous Carnival of Venice, which was to end on Tuesday, was canceled on Sunday. An aircraft of the Italian company Alitalia was stuck on its landing in Mauritius. The passengers were authorized to disembark, with the exception of around sixty people from Lombardy and Veneto, the regions where the Italian cases appeared.
Stock markets go crazy
Faced with soaring cases in Italy, going from six to 229 in four days, the European Commission does not, however, want immediate reinstatement of border controls inside the EU, a decision that remains to be decided. Member States' initiative.
The global acceleration of contamination has caused the stock markets to go down, not just in Europe. Wall Street plunged at the close: Dow Jones -3.6%, Nasdaq -3.7.
Tuesday morning at the opening, for its first session of the week, the Nikkei index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange plummeted by more than 4%. The director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, warned that the crisis "could jeopardize the global recovery". The IMF has already lowered its growth forecast for China in 2020 by 0.4 points to 5.6%. With China being the second largest economy in the world, this decline should cost 0.1 points of growth to global GDP.