MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th June, 2020) South Korea has demonstrated that the coronavirus pandemic can be contained with non-pharmaceutical means, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday.
In the absence of a safe and effective vaccine, the WHO chief urged countries to use available public health measures to suppress the transmission.
"I will give you one example, which is a country, South Korea. In February, I remember South Korea had the second largest number of cases after China ... South Korea has shown to the world that without even vaccines or therapeutics that it can take the number of cases down and suppress the outbreak," Tedros told a virtual briefing.
The WHO chief said that virus can be suppressed if the governments are |serious about the things they have to do" and the community can do its part.
"So while our best to find a vaccine, which is the right thing to do, our advice from WHO is we should do everything we can using the tools we have at hand. Because many countries, including the one example, Korea � I can give you a list of countries � have shown that this virus can be suppressed and controlled using the tools at hand. So the basics are still important and the basics are non-pharmaceutical, and they have shown their efficiency and effectiveness in controlling or suppressing this virus," Tedros added.
South Korea went from several hundred new cases daily in March to fewer than 200 daily in the last few weeks. The total number of confirmed cases in the country has reached 12,757, with 282 deaths, according to the official statistics.
