Europe now ‘epicentre’ of COVID-19 pandemic: WHO

Geneva:The World Health Organization said Friday that Europe was now the “epicentre” for the global coronavirus pandemic, and warned it was impossible to know when the outbreak would peak.

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“Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a virtual press conference.

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He said the continent had now “more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China.

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“More cases are now being reported every day than were reported in China at the height of its epidemic,” he said, referring to the global numbers.

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The virus, which first surfaced in China in December, has now killed more than 5,000 people, with cases around the world topping 134,000, according to an AFP tally.

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– Maria Van Kerkhove###

Tedros said the deaths passing the 5,000 mark was “a tragic milestone”.

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Maria Van Kerkhove, who heads the WHO’s emerging diseases unit, said it was not possible to predict how the pandemic will develop.

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“It’s impossible for us to say when this will peak globally. We hope that it is sooner rather than later.”

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Their comments came as countries in Europe and around the world put in place dramatic measures to halt the spread of the virus, including closing schools and tightening borders.

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Tedros said such measures could help, but stressed that countries needed to take “a comprehensive approach.”

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“Not testing alone. Not contact tracing alone. Not quarantine alone. Not social distancing alone. Do it all,” he said.

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He stressed the need to do more to “detect, protect and treat” cases.

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“You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is,” he said, calling on countries to “find, isolate, test and treat every case, to break the chains of transmission.”

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“Every case we find and treat limits the expansion of the disease,” he said.

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“Do not just let this fire burn.

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“Any country that looks at the experience of other countries with large epidemics and thinks ‘that won’t happen to us’ is making a deadly mistake.”

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Michael Ryan, who heads the WHO’s emergencies programme, stressed that so-called social distancing measures, including banning public gatherings and school closures, “are not a panecea”.

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