UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd January, 2020) The World Health Organization will shortly announce whether an outbreak of a new type of coronavirus constitutes a health emergency of international concern, UN spokesperson Eri Kaneko said in a press briefing on Wednesday.
"In Geneva today, the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has convened an Emergency Committee to determine whether the coronavirus outbreak constitutes the public health emergency of international concern," Kaneko said. "We expect that [announcement] in about one hour."
An unknown kind of viral pneumonia was first reported from the town of Wuhan in the central Chinese province of Hubei in late December. Infected individuals reportedly display symptoms typical of pneumonia and other acute respiratory diseases.
The WHO and Chinese authorities have since confirmed it to be a new strain of coronavirus, labeled 2019-nCoV, that can transmit from human to human. More than 440 people currently count infected in China, South Korea, Japan and Thailand, most of them reportedly exported from Wuhan.
On Tuesday, the first case in the United States was confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a 30-year old traveler from China was diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus in the state of Washington.
