MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st April, 2020) The World Health Organization (WHO) is looking into whether the use of medical masks by the general public can slow down the rate of community transmission of the new coronavirus, its director said Wednesday.
The advice so far has been that people who are sick and those caring for them should use face masks, which are in short supply globally because of a spike in demand.
"WHO continues to gather all available evidence and continues to evaluate the potential use of masks more broadly to control COVID-19 transmission at the community level," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the daily briefing.
He said the debate about the universal use of masks was still ongoing because the virus was a new one. But he added that supplying frontline health workers with protective gear remained WHO's priority.
The coronavirus has so far infected more than 823,000 people and killed over 40,5000 worldwide. Medical staff fighting the pandemic have been particularly vulnerable. Italy's nurse association estimated that health care workers made up 9 percent of the country's COVID-19 cases.
