The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday an emergency meeting on Wednesday devoted to the emergence of the new virus, close to SARS, which is spreading in China and has affected three other Asian countries.
An ad hoc committee is to meet in Geneva to determine whether to declare a "public health emergency of international concern", a qualification that is used only for the most serious epidemics, WHO announced.
Close to Sras
Zhong Nanshan, a renowned Chinese scientist and member of the National Health Commission, confirmed on Monday that the transmission of the virus by contagion between people was now "proven". WHO estimates that an animal seems to be "the most likely primary source", with "limited human-to-human transmission through close contact".
The new coronavirus is close to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and now affects three other countries in Asia: Japan, South Korea and Thailand. It worries all the more that millions of Chinese are preparing to travel for the Chinese New Year.
An extremely rare term
The SARS epidemic in 2002-2003 killed 774 people worldwide (including 349 in mainland China and 299 in Hong Kong) out of 8,096 cases, according to the WHO.
WHO has so far used the term “public health emergency of international concern” only in rare cases of epidemics requiring a vigorous international response, including the H1N1 swine flu in 2009, the Zika virus in 2016 and the Ebola fever, which ravaged part of West Africa from 2014 to 2016 and the DRC since 2018.
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